


Frosted

by brushstrokesApocalyptic



Category: Paranatural (Webcomic)
Genre: F/F, Slow Burn, Spectral Dimitri, children behaving badly and making my beta reader choke on almonds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-09-24 10:51:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 88,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9720350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brushstrokesApocalyptic/pseuds/brushstrokesApocalyptic
Summary: Suzy knows the Activity Club is up to no good, running around after school every day like chickens with their heads cut off, and she's determined to figure them out. But in seeking that goal, she finds herself faced with her greatest mystery yet — Why can't she go more than two words around Isabel Guerra without stuttering or blushing like a lovesick loon?





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> s/o to my beta reader lielac/logicalabsurdity who valiantly choked on her almonds while reading chapter 2. her sacrifice would be greatly honored except she's not actually dead so she'll just have to beta the rest of it.
> 
> in other news frosted will update mondays and thursdays! excluding these first two chapters obviously because it's valentines day and symbolism is important
> 
> EDIT: currently updating on just thursdays! whether this will be temporary or not depends on how long it takes me to finish rewriting the chapters that need it.

“Are you sure we should be doing this?” Collin asks, shifting his hold on the duffel bag in his arms. He glances back and forth down the darkened school halls, shivering a little, and looks back at Suzy. “We’re gonna get in trouble.”

Suzy responds with a huff. “Not if we don’t get caught, we won’t,” she says, not looking up at him. The lockpicks she’s working with slip from her fingers, clattering to the ground, and she pauses to glare at them for a second before retrieving them and getting back to work.

“Where did you even learn to pick locks?” Collin asks after a moment.

“Googled it.”

“And you seriously believe information you got from some random source on the internet is accurate?”

“WikiHow never lies.” With a final click, Suzy pulls the tools out and pushes the door open, giving Collin a smug look before tucking the picks behind her ear and wandering into the room.

Collin just gives her a dry glare, uncaring of the fact that she can’t actually see it. After a second, though, he hurries after her, shutting the door and clicking the light on as he goes, and glances around quickly.

Somehow, from all Suzy’s rants about them, Collin had almost expected the Activity Club’s room to look like the hideout of some demonic cult or something, but looking around the only thing that seems off are the sofas — _Are school clubs even allowed to bring couches into a classroom?_ he wonders, and then an irritated grunt from Suzy draws his attention back to her.

There’s a computer on the desk near the back, and Suzy has settled herself in the chair in front of it— lockpicks no longer behind her ear— with a scowl on her face. Collin raises an eyebrow. “What’s wrong? Did that computer insult my cat or something?”

Suzy blinks and glances over like she’d forgotten Collin was there. Then, somehow, her expression darkens even further. “It’s password protected,” she mutters once Collin’s stepped close enough to hear.

“Oh, obstruction of the flow of journalism, gotcha.” Collin shifts his weight and slings the bag over one shoulder, watching as Suzy starts tapping out different guesses.

It’s hard to follow her fingers, but he’s pretty sure she’s going through various combinations of the Activity Club members’ names. Spender, Mr Spender, Rick Spencer, Richard Spencer, all possible variations on their history teacher’s name, none of which unlock the computer.

Collin quickly finds his attention slipping, eyes wandering across the largely unremarkable room aside from, again, the couches. _Of course they wouldn’t make their room obviously full of secrets,_ he catches himself thinking, and restrains the urge to smack himself. _Don’t start thinking like Suzy now,_ he chides, wandering towards the couches and letting himself drop into the cushions. _If you do that, then you’ll probably start losing your morals too. And also your sanity._

He blinks slowly, eyes flickering over to the door again to confirm it’s closed before settling back up on the ceiling. The only things he can hear are the clacking of the keyboard, Suzy making increasingly frustrated grunts to fill out the pauses, and the distant hum of the air conditioning.

It feels weird, being inside the school in the middle of the night. It’s not the first time Suzy’s dragged him out to go on late-night investigations, nor even the first time those investigations have lead to them breaking and entering. She’s never broken into school at night though. Or if she has, she’s never taken Collin with her.

Collin yawns, rubbing at his eyes, and then jumps as Suzy lets out a frustrated yell and flips the keyboard into the monitor. Collin nearly gets whiplash turning to face her, and blinks a few times at the sight of her staring down the screen with a strained grin on her face.

“...Suzy?” Collin tries, and the corner of Suzy’s mouth twitches. “You okay?”

Suzy’s eye twitches, and she turns her head to look at Collin. “Am I? Am I okay, Collin?”

Collin swallows slowly. “...I dunno, I think you’d know better than I would.”

Suzy stares at him for a moment, lips twitching, and after a moment she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath through gritted teeth, slowly letting it out. When she opens her eyes again her grin looks just as forced, but more ‘genuinely trying to be cheerful’ than ‘I will tear out your throat with my teeth’. Collin breathes a sigh of relief.

“You know what?” Suzy begins, picking up a pencil from the desk and twirling it around her finger. “This is fine! It’s not a total lost cause, I can still get something out of this, even if the computer is _frustratingly_ unavailable. You remembered to pick up that stuff from Lisa, right?”

Collin sighs and reluctantly pulls himself from the gloriously soft cushions. “Yeah, and you’d better be grateful. It used up the rest of our stars.”

Suzy whistles appreciatively as Collin hands the bag over to her. “All of them? Must be some quality goods in there, then.”

Collin laughs wryly. “Yeah, how many times have you gone to the school store again? Remind me.”

Suzy makes a face at him before pulling the bag open and rooting around in it. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I just didn’t think she charged those prices on anything other than drinks and information.”

“She _only_ sells drinks and information, normally,” Collin deadpans. “I don’t know why you thought she’d change her business tactics just because we asked if she could get something out of the ordinary. If anything, it’s even more of a reason to overcharge.”

“Oh, hush, you,” Suzy grumbles, before pulling out a small, disk-shaped microphone. “Is this it?”

Collin nods. “Yeah, that’s the thing. She also gave me some batteries to go with it...”

Suzy nods and sets the microphone down, continuing to dig through the bag for the batteries. It takes her another minute to find them, those minutes pockmarked with her first sticking her face in the bag like that’ll help her search — “Really, Suzy?” — and then with her making a frustrated noise in the back of her throat and just dumping the entire contents of the bag on the ground.

With a resounding clatter, dozens of lockpicks of all shapes and sizes fall to the ground. Suzy drops right after to sift through them, moving picks into little piles until finally she finds the set of tiny batteries taped together.

Collin sighs. “I’m gonna have to clean that up, aren’t I?”

Suzy makes an affirmative noise, not even glancing at him as she inspects the microphone in search of a place to put the batteries. “Thanks for volunteering!”

Collin sighs again, deeper this time, before kneeling down and grabbing the discarded bag in one hand. Diligently he shovels the lockpicks in, occasionally pausing to glare up at the cheerfully-humming Suzy.

He doesn’t understand why Suzy insists on dragging him out of bed every other week or so to casually break the law with her like this. _You’re a pack mule!_ she always says, but there’s never anything involved that she can’t carry herself.

His fingers hit wood, and he snaps back to alertness to find a pencil lying the among the remaining few lockpicks like it’s trying to blend in. He picks it up, examining it curiously and finding absolutely nothing remarkable about it at all. Just an ordinary pencil, doing ordinary things.

“Hey, Collin, you gonna stare at that pencil all day?” Suzy cuts in, casually reaching over, snagging the pencil from Collin’s grip, and tucking it behind her ear. “I’m done setting up the microphone, so whenever you wanna finish picking up my lockpicks, we can go.”

“R-Right.” Collin hurries to finish up, scooping them together and shoveling them in before standing up and zipping the bag shut. “Right, let’s go, so I can _actually get some sleep_ , Susan.”

Suzy scoffs and waves her hand dismissively. “Sleep? What, do you think I’m gonna just let you catch some Z’s while _I_ set up the receiver?”

Collin stares at Suzy for a moment, expression slowly shifting into a look of dawning horror. “You— You can’t be serious.”

“I totally can.” Suzy punctuates that by pushing the door open and setting off at a run into the darkness.

“Wait!” Collin calls out, his cry echoing down the halls as he barely pauses to turn the light off before chasing after Suzy. “Suzy, wait, _when am I supposed to get any sleep?!_ ”

 

* * *

 

When Dimitri gets into the clubroom that morning, early enough that he’s not sure all the teachers are even there yet, he’s greeted by the sight of his clubmates fast asleep and snoring at the desk. He pauses at the door when he sees this, raised eyebrows left unseen by all but a passing spirit.

Collin is in the chair with his arms folded into a makeshift pillow at the edge of the desk and a pair of headphones half-fallen from his head, like he’s dozed off listening to music like Dimitri himself makes a habit of. Suzy, on the other hand, is perched on the armrest and leaned against the back of the chair, balanced just right so as to not fall off as long as she remains right where she it.

So, in short, she’s doomed to fall as soon as she wakes up.

Dimitri considers the situation for a moment, contemplating waking Suzy himself, then discards the idea. He’s not feeling cruel. The headphones on Collin, though, those look distinctly suspicious. _Collin doesn’t usually listen to music,_ he notes, then immediately wonders why he went through all the trouble of actively thinking that sentence. Of course Collin doesn’t listen to music, he knows this. It’s obvious.

Before he can get too sidetracked by his thoughts, Dimitri creeps silently across the room and daintily plucks the headphones from Collin’s head with barely a shifted hair, pulling them over his own ears. Only the soft hiss of static greets Dimitri, and he frowns.

As Dimitri sets the headphones back down next to Collin, he finds his eyes drawn to the pencil behind Suzy’s ear. There’s nothing innately unusual about it, she’s worn pencils like that many times before, but he can’t help but feel like there’s something off about it this time.

As he reaches over in an attempt to grab it, Suzy finally shifts on her sleep. With that slight change in balance, the chair slowly tips backwards, Dimitri helpless to stop it before a resounding crash echoes through the small room. Twin yelps of surprise and pain occur at the same time, and when Dimitri finally looks up to assess the damage he finds a tangle of limbs underneath the toppled chair.

He winces in sympathy. “You okay?”

Suzy lets out a vague noise, dazed from the unexpected fall and not fully awake. “Wha…?” She blinks a few times, trying to focus on Dimitri’s face as he leans across the desk to look down at his two fallen comrades. “Dee, why’re you upside down?”

Before Dimitri can correct Suzy’s assessment of the situation, Collin reminds her of his existence by letting out a pained groan. She frowns, blinking sleep away from her eyes, and looks down. “Collin? Why are you lying under my butt?”

Collin groans again and tries to push Suzy off of him. “You fell on me,” he grumbles, giving up halfway and folding his arms over his eyes. “‘M tired, lemme sleep...”

Dimitri hums thoughtfully. “While I would ordinarily support sleeping at all hours of the day, school does start in a few hours and you don’t have your supplies. What are you even doing here so soon?”

“Broke ‘nto the Activity Club,” Suzy mutters through a yawn, pushing the chair off her and laboriously sitting up. She blinks a few times, and then her expression lights up. “Oh yeah! Me and Collin broke into the Activity Club room last night and planted a bug!”

Slowly, Dimitri’s eyebrow creeps its way up his forehead again. “Is that so?”

“Yeah!” Suzy bounces to her feet, pushing her glasses up to rest on her forehead. “I also picked up a trophy to signify my successful trek into enemy territory—”

Suzy’s hand darts up to her ear and stops there, a puzzled frown dropping onto her face. “Where’d it go?”

“Where’d what go?” Dimitri asks, already scanning the ground. _Based on where her hand went, though, I have my suspicions..._

Suzy starts scanning the ground as well, ignoring Collin as he starts to pick himself up. “My trophy, I had it tucked behind my ear— Ah! There it is!”

She stoops under the desk and returns triumphantly brandishing a pencil. “This thing!”

Dimitri blinks. _Thought so._ “A pencil? That’s your trophy?”

Suzy tuts at him. “Ah, it’s not just any old pencil. This pencil—” Suzy pauses for dramatic effect, swishing the eraser end of the pencil through the air— “Belonged to the _Activity Club._ But no longer! From this day forward, this pencil will symbolise last night’s resounding defeat of the Activity Club’s defense systems! For glory!”

Dimitri gives her a long stare, matched in equal measure by the triumphant manner with which Suzy holds her new pencil, and then he shrugs. “Well, whatever floats your boat,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets. “All that aside, you’re gonna want to hurry if you want to get your stuff in time for school.”

Suzy blinks and pauses, halfway through tucking her ‘trophy' behind her ear. “What do you mean?”

“I’m guessing you didn’t bother bringing all your textbooks with you on your heist?”

Slowly, the realization dawns on Suzy’s face, and Dimitri smirks. “If you run, you might just be able to get to your house in time to ride the bus back up,” he says.

Papers go flying in her wake as Suzy whips past Dimitri and out the door, her footsteps rapidly fading into the distance. After a moment, Dimitri glances at Collin. “You gonna go too?”

Collin blinks slowly, leaning against the the desk, and after a moment’s consideration shakes his head. “I think… I’ll just say I slept in. And forgot my books. I’m not gonna run halfway down the hill on two hours of sleep.”

Dimitri nods sagely. “A wise choice. You can borrow mine for the classes we don’t share?”

Collin grunts noncommittally and drops back into the chair with his hands over his face. “...Sure. D’you mind if I keep the chair for a while?”

Dimitri waves him off, already heading for the door. “Don’t worry about it, I got a full night’s sleep, I can go without a nap for a while. I’ll wake you up before classes start.”

He barely catches Collin’s muttered thanks, the noise hitting his ears a moment before the door closes, and with a faint smile he turns and walks away.


	2. Chapter 2

Suzy’s legs are sore from running, her ego bruised from the scolding she received for being gone all night without telling her parents, and her throat hoarse from yelling for the bus driver to wait for her, but at least she doesn’t have to walk all the way back. It’s with this thought that she slumps into the stiff seat near the front, breathing a sigh of relief before pulling open her backpack to go through its contents.

 _...Textbooks, check, notebooks, check, pencil case, check…_ She runs through a mental checklist, going through every form of school supply she can think of, then hurriedly pats at her pocket. The familiar shape of her phone meets her fingers there and she exhales, leaning back against the backrest. _Good, that didn’t fall out. I think that’s everything._

Shutting her bag again, Suzy straightens up and turns her attention outward. She glances around at the other students, finding nothing of note going on in the still-nearly-empty bus, and after a moment heaves another sigh and turns to stare out the window.

Her mind blanks after a minute of watching suburbs go by, boredom sinking in without anyone to talk to. Collin, coward that he is, stayed behind, and while Suzy had momentarily considered picking up his stuff for him she ultimately decided against it when the bus showed up.

Another few minutes pass, her mind flicking idly between different trains of thought like a couch potato channel-surfing, and before she knows it more children are piling onto the bus. In an attempt to amuse herself, Suzy watches them file past and mentally picks out all the ones she’s blackmailed before. _Mary Garter, Sixth grade. I caught her cheating on a test, she caught me going in the boy’s bathroom. Neither of us told. Chad Argent, Seventh grade. Stole a platter of cookies from the staff lounge, I made him spy on the boy’s bathroom for me. Maxwell Puckett…_

Suzy blinks, then scoots forward to peer down the aisle. Sure enough, she catches a glimpse of one Mr. Max of Activity Club fame sliding into the seat a few aisles behind her, seemingly oblivious to her presence. A grin slips onto her face.

As the doors slide shut and the bus starts moving, Suzy reaches into her bag and digs out a sheet of paper and a pen. _‘Sup buttliege! How’s the arm? ^3^_ she writes, deftly folding it into an airplane and taking aim at Max’s head.

She throws, and immediately ducks down to observe from a more stable position. Sure enough, a few seconds later, there’s a startled squawk and, another moment later, the sound of rustling paper. Getting back up to observe Max’s reaction, Suzy grins when she sees him looking around in confusion. His eyes land on her, and as their eyes meet, she grins brightly and gives a thumbs-up and a wink.

Immediately, Max’s face drops into a scowl. He has a little difficulty writing his response with one arm still stuck in a sling, but he manages, and after a bit he throws the airplane back. Suzy has to lean into the aisle a bit to catch it, but it’s more than worth it. Suzy’s face splits into a grin at what he wrote.

 _I will skin you and wear you as a bathrobe if you so much as breathe in my direction_ , his response reads, and it’s accompanied by a charming doodle of stick-figure Max beaning stick-Suzy upside the head with a baseball bat, complete with red blood splatters.

Suzy quickly writes her response and throws it over. _Nice art! I’m guessing you’re still mad about the bug?_

It only takes Max a few seconds to respond. _What tipped you off?_

Suzy sticks her tongue out at Max from across the bus, beginning to fold up her response before thinking better of it and just balling it up to throw at Max’s head. _Well if it’s any consolation, I couldn’t get anything good out of it even despite the blackmail. No thanks to you!_

Max sticks his tongue out right back, balling it right back up as well and throwing. _Oh, what are you gonna do? Blackmail me again? What are you gonna use for that?_

Suzy scowls at him. _I’ll find something! Just you wait, I’m gonna crack you wiiide open, and then you’ll be sorry you ever tried to keep secrets from me._

Max just levels a glare at her, writing something quickly and throwing it before crossing his arms and turning resolutely towards the window. _Gross,_ is all he wrote, and Suzy doesn’t have a chance to respond before the bus pulls up in front of the school and students start flooding out.

Collin’s waiting for her at the doors, leaned against the wall and looking insufferably smug. “Had a good run?”

Suzy glares and brushes past him. “Yeah, laugh it up why don’t you. I didn’t get your stuff.”

“Oh yeah?” The smug look drops from Collin’s face as he turns to trot after Suzy, though he still looks amused. “Well, I got another hour of sleep, so who’s really winning here?”

Suzy glares back at him on her way up the stairs. “Me, because you don’t have your books or anything to take notes with.”

Collin lets out a dismissive huff of air. “I’ve got an excuse all lined up, and Dimitri’s offered to share his stuff with me. I’m _set_.”

Suzy sticks her tongue out at him and twists away to her locker. Collin is content to remain by the stairs for a moment, watching Suzy with a smug expression, before he grows bored and wanders off.

Now lacking any interested audience, (though numerous uninterested students mill around their lockers, ignoring anyone not actively interacting with them) Suzy lets her shoulders slump and drops her forehead to hit her locker door. She’s trying her best to fight it, but Suzy can’t deny that the late night took its toll on her. For the sake of her pride, she doesn’t let Collin see, but now she lets herself take a moment of shuteye.

Then the first bell rings, and with a sigh Suzy lifts her head and shuts her locker again. The sound of urgent footsteps draws her attention over to the stairs, and after a moment the worst person who could possibly see her like this bursts into the nearly-empty hall.

Isabel Guerra. The moment Suzy sees that bronze face, she feels her mood drop somehow even further, and without thinking she turns to watch her archenemy go. Isabel looks slightly panicked in the way people do when they’re at risk of being late for class, her hair ruffled and an umbrella clutched in her hand—

Suzy does a double-take. _An umbrella? Why? It’s not even cloudy out._

She decides after a moment to just chalk it up as another one of the Activity Club’s weirdities, and turns her attention back to Isabel’s actions. Isabel’s stopped by one of the lockers, and Suzy idly remembers _oh yeah, her locker’s pretty close to mine._ Unheeding of Suzy’s internal monologue, Isabel rears up on one leg, curling the other up to her chest, and then—

The ensuing _bang_ is far too loud to Suzy’s sleep-deprived ears, making her shut her eyes in a wince, but when she opens them again Isabel’s locker is wide open and she’s trading the umbrella for her books. Suzy stands there in gobsmacked awe, only snapping out of it when Isabel shuts her locker again and turns to leave, coincidentally moving in Suzy’s direction. Suzy hurriedly snaps her mouth shut and turns around with flushed cheeks, trying to look like she was just leaving her locker, and starts hurrying towards her first class.

She can hear Isabel’s footsteps pause for a moment behind her, and Suzy determinedly picks up the pace. It’s a short trek to the classroom, and barely a minute after Suzy’s situated at her desk the bell rings. Isabel skids in barely a second later, and Mr. Spender just gives her an amused look and directs her to an empty seat.

Spender launches into a lecture about ancient Egypt, and it doesn’t take long for Suzy’s attention to start wandering. It takes her a moment to realize she’s staring at Isabel, and as soon as she does she wrenches her gaze away and scowls.

A second later, though, she glances back, a speculative frown on her face. _Isabel just proved those rumors about the second floor lockers true,_ she muses, mentally playing back that moment. _I didn’t get to see exactly how she hit it, but… she didn’t seem to act like this is anything out of the ordinary. Just a faster way of opening her locker, for use in case of emergencies. How can I get her to demonstrate it again?_

For a second, Suzy considers just going up to Isabel after class and asking her. That idea is summarily dismissed as too out there, there’s no way Suzy’s arch-nemesis would reveal her secrets so easily. From there, Suzy entertains the possibility of finding some way to delay Isabel to the point where she’d have to kick it open again to avoid being late to class.

Various ideas flicker through her mind— Pull the fire alarm, hold Isabel up with a conversation ( _No, that’s too risky_ ), murder somebody, appeal to Isabel’s goody-two-shoes-ness by pretending to get hurt in front of her— but ultimately the opportunity comes as the bell rings and everyone starts filing out to go to their next class.

Collin happens to pass her in the hall, barely glancing at her as he turns to walk down the stairs. Isabel’s a few steps below him, almost at the landing, and like a jigsaw puzzle the pieces click together in Suzy’s mind. “Hey, Collin!” she calls out, hurrying down after him, hoping to time this just right.

True to form, Collin heaves a sigh and turns to level a dry stare up at Suzy. “What do you want now—”

Suzy’s hands shoot out in a firm shove. Collin topples backwards as intended, and Suzy shifts all her weight backwards to fall backwards instead of forward. Her butt hits the stairs, making her wince, but that’s nothing compared to the human dominoes falling in front of her.

For a brief moment, Collin’s face twists into outrage, and then he lands on Isabel sending her toppling down as well. The next few seconds are a blur of tangled limbs and surprised screams, and then there’s Collin, dazed and confused with a bloody nose, lying on top of a facedown Isabel.

Shunting her grin off her face to be replaced with her best impression of ‘concerned friend who definitely didn’t just push you down the stairs’, Suzy pulls herself to her feet and hurries after them. “Hey, are you okay?!”

 

* * *

 

“Did you really have to get me involved with this?” Collin asks, voice muffled by the tissues stuffed up his nose. “I mean, really. Be honest here. Did you _have to?_ ”

Suzy hums and looks up at the ceiling outside the nurse's office, face screwing up in concentration as she considers the question for far longer than Collin is comfortable with. “...No,” she finally answers. Seeing Collin begin to open his mouth for some angry retort, she quickly raises her hand to stop him. “But! You were perfectly positioned for distracting Isabel. Can you really fault me for taking such an opportunity?”

“Yes, I— _Distracting_ ? Is that what you call _pushing two people down the stairs_?”

“Shhhhhpshhhhhshhh!” Suzy shushes urgently, glancing around worriedly and leaning in close to whisper, “Do you _want_ her to hear you?”

Collin gives her an unimpressed look, the effect somewhat hampered by the rapid swelling encroaching over his left eye. “I don’t see why it matters to you. She’s your _arch-enemy_ , isn’t she? Shouldn’t you want her to have a reason to hate you too, so you can be rivals properly?”

Suzy makes a frustrated noise in the back of her throat and turns her head away. “Yeah, but not like _this._ I should be the one to tell her about my hatred, not my assistant.”

“Right, your ‘hatred’,” Collin scoffs, hanging air quotes on either side of his head with a vaguely amused look.

“What’s that look supposed to mean?” Suzy asks indignantly, a blush rising up on her cheeks unbidden.

“Nothing,” Collin says, turning away with a smirk. “Oh, and don’t look now, but miss ‘Suzy's Arch-Nemesis’ is coming our way.”

Suzy turns, and sure enough there’s Isabel waving off nurses as she leaves the office with bandages wrapped around her head. “...I’m fine, really, it hardly even hurts...” Suzy can just barely catch Isabel saying, and she quickly schools her expression to indifference.

From the corner of her eye, Suzy watches Isabel finally manage to convince the nurses she’s well enough to walk around the school without spontaneously collapsing. As the final nurse vanishes back into the office with one last concerned glance thrown her way, Isabel turns to trot across the hall to Collin.

“Hey, sorry again for elbowing you in the face,” Isabel begins. “It was pure reflex, really, I was just kinda running on adrenaline for a moment there.”

Collin waves her off. “It’s fine, not your fault I got—” Suzy shifts her weight to subtly stomp on Collin’s foot, and he winces. “—that I tripped and fell on you.”

“Still, I did give you a black eye, and it wouldn’t be cool of me to just ignore that.” Isabel gives a wry smile and shifts her weight backwards, laying her hand on her hip. “But hey, I don’t think I got your name. I’m Isabel, how ‘bout you?”

“Yeah, I’ve… heard your name around. I’m Collin, and this is—” Collin starts to motion at Suzy, then blinks as he realizes the space which moment ago contained an amoral blonde girl now held nothing but air. “Suzy?”

Confused, he glances around, then deadpans as he spies Suzy hiding just behind the nearest corner. “Suzy. What are you doing?”

Suzy leans out from her hiding place with an intensely flustered and panicked look on her face. Her lips are pursed tight, and the only noise that comes out is a high-pitched noise somewhere between a hum and a whimper. Collin sighs. “Really? You can’t even pretend to act like a normal person for two minutes around—”

Suzy blurs across the hallway to press her hand over Collin’s mouth and shush him loudly. Then, realizing she’s less than five feet away from Isabel, she lets out a squeak and darts behind Collin.

Isabel gives her a bemused smile. “Now what’s all that about? I don’t bite, you know.”

Suzy just flushes and ducks her head head behind Collin’s arm, staring suspiciously at Isabel through the gap between his arm and his side.

Isabel sighs. “Look, Suzy, right? I can get why you’d be intimidated, what with me having just beaten up your friend—” Collin scoffs quietly, but Isabel doesn’t so much as pause. “But really I’m just a big softy. This kinda thing happens like, once a month. Or… maybe every other week. Outside of formal sparring matches, then it’s more like… every day.” She dwells on her words for a moment, then shakes her head and looks back at Suzy. “Point is! I don’t try to make a habit of beating people up without their permission, so if that’s what you’re worried about you shouldn’t be, ‘cause I don’t really wanna pick a fight with you. I’d win anyway, way too easily, so what’s the point.”

Suzy glowers at her a moment longer, then takes a deep breath and gathers her strength to stand up straight again and turn away to hide her burning cheeks. “That _wasn’t_ what I was worried about, but I appreciate the assurance.”

“Oh yeah? Then why _were_ you hiding behind Collin?” Isabel smirks, placing a hand over her heart. “Could it be you were flustered by my _devilish charms_?”

Suzy squawks indignantly, but is saved the trouble of having to answer that by the bell going off to signal the coming of the second period. Isabel looks up and frowns. “Oh, dangit, gonna be late to class. Sorry, I gotta go stop by my locker for a bit, maybe we can talk some more later!”

Before anyone can protest, Isabel turns and jogs down the hall towards the stairs. Suzy’s eyes light up as she goes, and she quickly darts out from behind Collin. “This is my chance!” she hisses.

“Your chance to do what? Is this related to why you pushed me down the stairs out of the blue?” Collin follows at a slightly more sedate pace, and after a moment he narrows his eyes suspiciously. “You’re not planning to push her down the stairs again, are you? Because I’m pretty sure at the height she’s at that could break her neck. And then you’d go to jail.”

Suzy huffs dismissively. “No, I’m not gonna push her down the stairs. That would be counterproductive.” Isabel rounds the corner of the stairs, and Suzy darts after and stops right at the landing to peer after her. “No, I just pushed her down the stairs so she’d be held up long enough for me to confirm something.”

“Oh yeah, I guess you did say something about distracting her...” Collin pauses. “But how the heck do you go from _distracting Isabel_ to _pushing Isabel down the stairs?!_ ”

“Hey, technically speaking you’re the one who knocked her down.” Suzy darts up to the top of the stairs and peers out around the corner to watch Isabel approach the lockers with narrowed eyes.

“Yeah, because _you pushed me!_ I had no control over my path from there!”

“Feh, details.”

Collin sighs. “Alright, fine. But what are you even trying to confirm?”

Suzy hums and motions for Collin to come closer as she creeps out into the open to follow Isabel. “Y’know those rumors about the lockers on this floor?”

Collin trots along at her heel without the slightest regard for stealth. “The ones about how if you kick them right they pop right open? What, did Isabel confirm those rumors right before your eyes with no other witnesses around?”

“Mm-hm.”

He pauses. “...Okay, I’m not gonna question it. But why do you need to confirm it? You’ve written articles on less evidence than this.”

Suzy growls quietly. “This isn’t about writing an article on it, Collin, this is about examining her form and technique so I can duplicate it myself. Writing the article comes second.”

“Uh huh. And you couldn’t go up to her and ask about it because…?”

Suzy gives Collin an are-you-serious look. “Really? Do you really think I could just go up to her and _ask_ her about her super secret locker-opening technique?”

Collin raises an eyebrow. “Yes..? Did you seriously not consider doing that?”

“Oh yeah, I considered it all right, for all of _two seconds_. There’s no way she’d let go of her secrets that easily, and if I asked her she’d put her guard up and I’d never get a chance to catch her at it.”

Collin stares at Suzy for a moment. “...Sure,” he finally says, throwing his hands up and turning away. “Fine, since you’ve so completely convinced yourself of that, I’m just gonna go to class. See you at lunch.”

Suzy just waves him off distractedly, already focused on peering around another corner at her prey. Isabel’s just reached her locker, which makes Suzy snap to attention and send the analytical portions of her mind into overdrive. Isabel rears up, going into the same position she remembers from earlier— one leg straight up as support, the other one curled to her chest, though she barely holds it there before letting it shoot out and hit the locker.

She doesn’t wince this time at the noise, possibly because she’s had time to adapt and properly wake up. Because of this, she can properly see the way Isabel springs back to avoid the opening door, and with a grin she commits that moment to memory.

Then the second bell goes off, and simultaneously both Suzy and Isabel look up, swear under their breaths, and take off running in opposite directions down the hall.


	3. Chapter 3

Ms. Baxter excuses Suzy for her tardiness when she says she was taking her friend to the nurse’s office— technically true, but there was more than enough time after that for her to get to class on time.

As she drops into her seat, sighing a sigh of sweet relief, she realizes who’s sitting in front of her. Isabel Guerra. She’d forgotten they take math together, something blessedly easy to forget when normally they sit nowhere near each other. They don’t have assigned seating in this school, though, so Suzy is cursed to stare at the back of Isabel’s head for the entirety of second period.

Oh, sure, she can see the blackboard just fine over Isabel’s head, especially with her hunkered over her notebook, but it’s the principle of the thing. In any moment with Isabel in her field of vision, Suzy is _contractually obligated_ to have her mood drop at least five degrees Celsius. Or Fahrenheit. Whichever has larger degrees.

What was she thinking about again? Oh, right, Isabel. The back of Isabel’s head.

Suzy’s frown deepens, and she presses the butt of her pencil against her cheek in thought. Their interaction outside the nurse’s office had been problematic, to say the least. She’d made herself out to be a blustering fool, the worst possible first impression to give her arch-nemesis, and worst of all, Isabel didn’t even seem to care! She just took Suzy’s awkwardness in stride, flirted, went on a tangent about beating people up, and then had the gall to _smile_ at her! And not even like, a dismissive sneer. No, a friendly smile, like the kind you give to someone you’d like to be friends with. _Disgusting_.

She blinks, and after a moment realizes the target of her animosity is no longer bent over her desk. Her arms are moving like she’s messing with something Suzy can’t see, the nature of which becomes clear when Isabel lowers one arm with a paper airplane held in a reverse grip.

Isabel glances back, and Suzy hurriedly tries to look interested in her notes— _Where did all these squiggly lines come from? Dangit, I should’ve paid more attention to what I was writing, I’ll never be able to read this stuff..._

From the corner of her eye, Suzy watches Isabel’s airplane glide just above the floor a few desks back before skidding a few inches and flipping onto its back. Suzy turns her head subtly to follow it, and blinks as she see Edward Burger, self-appointed Weird Kid and Isabel’s maybe-adopted-brother. (They live together, is all Suzy knows, and they’re incredibly close in a way that doesn’t gel right to be romantic.)

Edward leans down to grab the airplane with much less subtlety than how it was thrown. His face shifts through an odd display of emotions Suzy can’t quite figure out as he reads the note, eventually settling on annoyance. He doesn’t pass anything back, instead just flattening the airplane and sticking it under his notebook before turning to look back at the front of the room.

Suzy follows his lead, glancing at the clock as she goes, and is frustrated to realize they’re barely a quarter of the way through the period. Sighing, she props her head up on her hand and chews on the end of her pencil as she stares at her notebook.

After a moment, her hand drifts down to start sketching out a figure. One leg straight down to the ground, arms bent to maximise balance, other leg kicking out at a slightly upward angle…

Suzy frowns as she starts drawing in the hair. _They’re passing notes right under my nose. Isabel didn’t seem to realise what I’m planning, but what if that’s just an act? What if that message was her warning Edward that I’ve started making my move?_

Suzy ignores the fact that she _has_ no greater scheme for Isabel to know about. Caught up in her paranoia as she is, she only half notices as her hands finish the first drawing of Isabel and move on to another. It’s the same pose, but shot from a different angle; kicking towards the viewer instead of somewhere off to the left. It’s an interesting exercise in foreshortening, and Suzy isn’t so happy with how it turned out, but instead of worrying about it she just moves onto the next.

By the time class ends, that entire page of Suzy’s notebook is filled with doodles of Isabel. Kicking, punching, sliding along an imaginary floor, all manner of action poses. When the bell rings to snap her out of her reverie, she quickly snaps the book closed and looks around to see if anyone’s watching her.

Filing out alongside all her classmates, Suzy barely catches Ed saying something, and instinctively she pauses to listen in.

“...kind of trouble do you mean?” he’s saying, and Suzy turns to find him doggedly following Isabel down the hall. Suzy frowns, and with barely a moment’s hesitation starts following them a several paces back.

“I dunno exactly,” Isabel replies, shouldering her umbrella— _Again with the umbrella! What is this, Accessorize Inappropriately For The Weather Day, celebrated only by the Guerras?_ — “I just know I haven’t seen Max since before school started, and neither has Isaac. He missed history class.”

Suzy frowns, thinking back, and realizes to her chagrin that Isabel’s right— She’d been wrapped up puzzling over Isabel’s kicks, but she has no memory of seeing Max, despite the fact that he wouldn’t have reacted well to seeing her after their... conversation... on the bus.

“So what are we gonna do?” Ed asks. “Search the school?”

Isabel nods, swinging around to face Ed, and Suzy ducks behind the corner with a squeak. “We should swing by the clubroom first. I told Isaac to meet up with me there, he might have seen something.”

Ed makes an affirmative noise, and then a pair of retreating sets of footsteps serve as a backdrop to Suzy fighting to calm her racing heart. _That was way too close_.

Taking a deep breath, Suzy straightens back up and schools her face with determination. She begins jogging down the hall the way she came. _If I get to my clubroom before they get to theirs, I can listen in on their conversation and get closer to learning their secrets. This is what I stayed up all night for, it had better be dang well worth running all the way down to my house for—_

She almost runs right past her locker, skidding to a stop just in time to pull it open and trade her books for her lunch. _Can’t forget that, even the greatest reporter’s gotta eat sometimes. Where was I again? Right, listening in on the Activity Club. Gotcha._

 

* * *

 

Suzy gets to the headphones nearly a minute before Ed and Isabel reach the activity clubroom, and for that time she’s treated to the muffled sound of rustling paper and uneven banging like a hammer on wood.

Then, distantly, she hears a voice. “Uh, excuse me? Can I say something?” the voice says, or at least Suzy thinks that’s what it says, though nothing about the ambient noise seems to change in response. After a moment, the unfamiliar male voice— _Isaac? I’m not so familiar with him, but I guess that’s what he sounds like_ — continues, “See, I’m pretty sure you’re basing this whole feud on a misunderstanding. Max isn’t the one who— Max. The guy you have tied up under the desk.”

Another short period of relative silence, though this one is filled with almost frantic rustling and a distinct lack of banging. “Dude, I can still see him just fine. I get you’re color-blind and all, but—”

There’s the distant sound of a door slamming, joined by another hammerfall that somehow manages to sound startled. “Isaac!” Isabel yells, difficult to hear over the rustling, “Are you okay?!”

Everything goes quiet for a moment, and then there’s a mess of noise during which Suzy can barely make out Isaac yelling, and a few distant screams that probably belong to Ed and Isabel. The yelling grows distant, eventually fading away into nothing, though Suzy swears if she lifts the headphones from her ears she can hear them yelling from across the school. A few moments later, though, there’s a faint groan and a thump comparable to, say, someone’s head impacting the underside of a desk.

“Wha…?” Suzy hears, and she thinks that’s the voice of the supposedly-missing Maxwell Puckett. Immediately she snaps to attention.

The rustling starts up again, quieter this time, and only for a moment. “Look, I _said_ I was sorry,” Max mutters after a moment, and Suzy’s pretty sure the rustling is caused by him this time. “How was I supposed to know that was your guardian? And you’re not even giving me any opportunity to make up for it either!”

A slight bit of rustling. “Oh yeah, because getting knocked out and stuffed under a desk is exactly my idea of what atoning means. _Thanks_ , Jerry’s ancient roman cousin.”

Shuffling noises, followed shortly by scraping like someone pushing furniture, and then another dull thump. “What is your _problem,_ man? I’m not even going anywhere! I just want to sit somewhere other than under this desk, it’s really cramped!”

A single rustle, and Max sighs. “Can I at least clear out the wrapping paper? That noise is getting really annoying.”

Max doesn’t even wait for a responding rustle before he starts making distinct scraping noises, presumably pushing paper around as he said he would. There’s another thump, and Max groans in pain. “Ow, seriously? Does it seriously matter that much to you?”

A rustle, and before Max can respond again the door slams back open. “Max!” Isaac sounds exhausted. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, except discount Jerry from Tom & Jerry won’t let me redecorate.” Distant footsteps and shuffling. “Seriously, man, pick a theme and stick with it, you look like you just raided the craft store and stole a bit of everything.”

“That’s because they did,” Isaac says, now much closer to the microphone. “I dunno how they’re gonna explain hundreds of wadded up balls of colorful paper swarming out of the mall, but we should try not to seem related to it. And by that I mean clean up the whole mess in here and in the hall before anyone notices.”

“Um, yeah, about that,” Max mutters, “This thing isn’t letting me even move more than a foot in any direction, so I’m not sure how much help I’ll be.”

“Yeah, about that.” Isaac’s voice shifts, like he’s addressing someone else. “Emperor’s orders, you have to let the prisoner go.” Angry rustling. “Hey, do you think I’d lie about this? Look, he gave me a tiny scroll and everything!”

There’s several seconds of silence, broken only by a slight rustling, and then Max lets out a sigh of relief. “Finally. I thought that thing would never leave.”

“Are you okay? They didn’t hurt your arm or anything, did they?”

“My arm’s fine, Isaac,” Max mutters, shuffling and scraping noises coming through as his voice gets distant. “I mean, as fine as it could be considering it’s still healing, but whatever. They just used some kinda...”

Frustratingly, Max and Isaac’s voices fade too far into the distance for Suzy to make out. For a moment, Suzy strains against the headphones, trying to figure out what Max and Isaac are talking about, before finally she gives up and throws the headphones against the desk.

An amused noise makes her look up and notice Dimitri hovering by the open door. Quickly, she composes herself and gives him a bright grin. “Oh, Dee! Didn’t see you there, did you need anything?”

“Nothing, I was just passing by and noticed you were listening to something.” He steps inside and gives the headphones a curious look. “Music?”

“Feh. Music’s for chumps, I only listen to the finest sounds, like the Activity Club getting up to some sort of mischief that _I can’t figure out_.”

Dimitri blinks. “Sounds interesting. What do they seem to be doing?”

Suzy throws her hands up in the air. “That’s the thing, I have no idea! There’s all these rustling noises that block out half their words, and the way they talk and the way the pauses line up almost make it seem like there’s another person there, but if there is _they aren’t talking in words!_ ”

Dimitri goes silent for a moment, then unshoulders his backpack and steps forward. “Mind if I listen?”

“Sure, go ahead, they’re done talking by now but I definitely hit the record button this time so you can play it back.” Suzy vacates her chair to let Dimitri take her place, wandering in the direction of the door. “Text me if you find anything interesting, I’m gonna go take a walk to keep me awake.”

“Alright, see you.” Dimitri starts to put on the headphones, then pauses as he notices the paper bag sitting next to him. “Hey, wait— Is this your lunch?”

“Huh?” Suzy looks back, glancing over at the bag Dimitri’s holding up, and shrugs. “Yeah, but I don’t feel that hungry right now. You can have it if you want.”

Dimitri levels a concerned stare at her, but Suzy ignores it and shuts the door behind herself. Squaring her shoulders, she starts down the hall at a brisk pace. _Isabel and Edward are still AWOL, maybe this whole thing’ll start to make more sense when I find them._

That thought in mind, she takes a winding path through the school, keeping an ear out for two voices yelling.

As it turns out, however, they’re done yelling. Suzy realizes this when they barrel past her around a corner, sprinting like the hounds of hell are yapping at their heels— but there’s nothing there. Suzy glances left and right, pulling her phone out as she begins to make chase, and then lets it go.

_Maybe they’re running from a ghost,_ she jokes to herself, aiming the phone at the fleeing suspects and hitting record. _Well, I’m sure if they are it’ll show up on the camera. Ghosts do that kinda thing, right?_

Nothing immediately out of place appears, at least nothing she can’t see without the camera, so she shrugs the ghost theory off and picks up the pace. She’s careful to keep behind corners, the only part of her consistently visible her phone, in case someone turns around unexpectedly again— Suzy can review the footage later on if she misses anything.

She finds the caution well-warranted when halfway down the hallway Isabel twists around to swipe her umbrella through the air, letting it snap open as she does and bracing herself against the floor like— Suzy doesn’t know _what_ it’s like, because she has no frame of reference for just _what the heck those two are up to,_ but then Ed and Isabel hunker down in the middle of the hall to whisper urgently at each other and pull out their phones.

Isabel taps something out on her phone— maybe texting someone? After a moment, her shoulders slump, and after whispering something to Ed she stands and turns back to look at something. She’s silent for a moment, Ed standing up in that time, and then glances back at Ed to say something. He nods, somewhat hesitant, and then they both shift positions.

Finally, Isabel speaks loud enough for her to carry over to Suzy. “...One… two...” she says, and Suzy realizes too late that they’re preparing to start running, coincidentally in the direction of her cover.

As Suzy ducks further back, Isabel’s umbrella snaps shut. Then, a split second later, something blurs past her, leaving nothing but wind and roiling clouds of dust in its wake. She drops her phone in surprise, stepping back to press herself against the wall and hands snapping up to keep her glasses from getting displaced.

Once everything settles down, Suzy opens her eyes back up and looks for her phone in hopes that the recorded video would hold some answers as to what that blur was (though she has her suspicions, considering the distinct lack of Isabel and Ed where they were standing a moment ago). She blinks as she realizes her phone is nowhere near her feet, where she’d expect it to have landed. Searching the hall, she spot it roughly ten feet away and seemingly…

Hovering? A few inches from the ground? _I swear to gosh if just being around the Activity Club is enough to get me wrapped up in… whatever’s going on here…_

She pauses to think it over. _Well, I mean, I’d finally get some dang answers, so I guess it’s good? Dangit, self, stop making sense! I’m trying to be angry!_

While she gets distracted by her internal Activity-Club-cursing-out, her phone floats several more feet down the hall. Noticing this, Suzy lets out an outraged squawk and chases after it.

The phone seems to jump and starts moving faster, but Suzy’s upon it in moments and once it’s in her hands, it seems to be free of whatever demonic influence was causing it to make its escape. She gives it a quick shake just in case, then finally ends the video and winds it to the moment she’s questioning.

Sure enough, the colors of the blur match Ed and Isabel plus what the two of them were wearing, with all the colors at the appropriate elevations. Suzy pauses the video right in the middle of the blur and stares at it, biting at her thumb in thought. _Okay, Suzy, consider the situation. At least two members of the Activity Club are apparently the Flash. What can you extrapolate from this information?_

She stares into space for a moment, connecting dots, (only half of which have anything directly to do with the Activity Club,) and finally pounds her fist in her hand with a triumphant smile.

“They’re superheroes!” she announces to the empty hall, stuffing her phone in her pocket. She twists around on her heel and sets off back towards the Journalism Club Room, humming a jaunty tune with a slight skip in her step. _Just wait until Collin sees this,_ she thinks, a wild grin slipping onto her face.

 

* * *

 

Collin’s already in the room when Suzy gets there, talking to Dimitri, though their conversation pauses on Suzy’s entry long enough for Collin to recoil and say “God _damn,_ Suzy, why do you look like you pushed someone’s dog down the stairs?”

Suzy’s grin barely drops as she looks at him. “You’re never gonna let that go, are you? It was one time!”

“It was _this morning!_ And it happened to me!” Collin crosses his arms and leans back. “I am well within my rights to still be mad about it.”

“Forgive and forget, Collin,” Suzy chides, and then her grin springs back into full force. Ignoring Collin protesting the hypocrisy of Suzy of all people using that phrase, she pulls her phone back out and swipes back to the video. “Anyway, I managed to snag some _exclusive footage_ of the Activity Club at work. Take a look.”

Giving Suzy a wary look, Collin tentatively takes the phone and hits play. His expression shifts from confusion to mild exasperation after a moment. “Suzy, this is just Ed and Isabel running around the school. You can’t get anything from this.”

Suzy tsks at him a few times. “Collin, shouldn’t you know by now from all our late-night stakeouts that any good journalist needs patience? Just keep watching.”

He glances at her, skeptical, but nonetheless continues through the video. At some point, Dimitri migrates from the desk to hover over Collin’s shoulder, looking remarkably interested in the shakey video. After several minutes of blurry hall action, Suzy can tell when Ed and Isabel skid to a stop without even glancing at her phone just by the way Collin’s eyes widen and Dimitri’s eyebrows rise.

And then, as if to confirm Suzy’s reading of nonverbal clues, Collin speaks up. “Why’d they stop? Come to think of it, why were they running in the first place? They don’t look like they knew you were there...”

Dimitri hums quietly. “...They were running from something. Probably,” he hastily tacks on when Collin looks up at him. “I mean, I’m just guessing based on their body language.”

“You can make out their body language in this blurry phone recording?” Collin asks, raising an eyebrow. Dimitri just purses his lips and looks away, and after a moment Collin lets it go and looks back at the phone.

Collin doesn’t comment on Ed and Isabel’s super speed past a mildly curious look, Dimitri not even showing that much, though they’re both amused when Suzy’s phone attempts to run away from her— Dimitri more so, which surprises Suzy.

Once the video’s over and Suzy’s phone returned to the safe embrace of her pocket, Suzy crosses her arms and stares firmly at her underlings. “So, theories on what was causing that stuff in the video?”

Collin frowns, looking up in thought and chewing on his lower lip, before finally shrugging and saying, “Maybe our school is haunted?”

“Superpowers?” Dimitri suggests a split second later, not so much as glancing over at Collin. “One or both of them have super speed, and also telekinesis to try and steal your phone with because they noticed you recording them on their way out.”

Suzy beams. “Exactly my thoughts, Dimitri, glad to see we’re on the same page.”

“But— Are you going to ignore the fact that they were apparently being _chased_ by something?” Collin protests.

“Don’t be silly, Collin, everyone knows ghosts aren’t real,” Suzy admonishes. “They clearly must have been _pretending_ to be chased to lead me into a trap. Right, Dimitri?”

“Definitely,” Dimitri agrees, though something in his smile seems to reek of dishonesty.

“But they didn’t even notice you—” Collin lets out a wordless noise of frustration before letting his head drop into his hands. “Fine. I don’t even care anymore.”

Dimitri pats Collin on the back consolingly, and Suzy turns around with a flourish. “Well, now that we’ve gotten that all established, I can start writing the article tonight. Dimitri, is my lunch still there?”

“No, Collin ate it.”

“Darn.” Suzy sighs, then perks right back up again and heads for the door. “Well, I’ve skipped meals before, I’ll survive. A good journalist knows how to work on an empty stomach!”

“That’s probably not healthy,” Dimitri mutters, making Suzy pause just before stepping outside.

She narrows her eyes at him. “Don’t tell me what to do, Danger,” she hisses, before slipping outside and vanishing into the halls.

Meanwhile, back in the clubroom, Collin and Dimitri just stare after her with twin looks of exasperation. After a long moment, Dimitri speaks.

“Ten bucks says she’s going to the cafeteria,” he says, holding up a ten dollar bill.

Collin barely glances at him. “No bet.”


	4. Chapter 4

It’s been days since she said she’d write an article on the Activity Club’s alleged superpowers, and Suzy just can’t seem to make the words come out right.

A lot happened on that day, honestly; running all the way home to pick up her school supplies, Isabel demonstrating the proper kicking-lockers-open technique, Max apparently getting kidnapped by...  _ something _ . (Collin still refuses to let go of the ghost theory, and in the privacy of her mind Suzy admits he has a point.)

Despite that, though, the deadline for the next issue of the newspaper is coming up fast, and Suzy has nothing to show for it other than a hastily-scribbled outline and three more doodle Isabels kicking things. Collin keeps suggesting she find something else to write an article about— “ _ Maybe the locker kicking rumor,”  _ he’s suggested more than once, the particular instance Suzy’s thinking of involving her holding him in a chokehold. “ _ Maybe you could even get an interview for it by just  _ talking to Isabel like a normal person, _ instead of pushing her down the stairs. _ ”

Loathe as she is to admit it, Collin continues to have a point— it’s already Monday, the paper comes out on Wednesday, and Suzy’s desperate.

So, then, it comes to this. School has just let out, Isabel’s in front of her locker talking to Max, Suzy’s pretending to look busy at her own locker as she waits for Isabel to become unoccupied, and Collin’s hovering several feet away staring expectantly at Suzy.

Suzy glances over at Isabel, nerves twisting her up inside and making her throat seize up. Isabel and Max just  _ refuse _ to stop talking, laughing and joking about something Suzy can’t quite make out, and it’s starting to look like they might just walk home together. 

Sure enough, after ten more agonizing minutes spent waiting, during which almost everyone else leaves (including Collin once the novelty of Suzy looking anything but maniacal wears off), Isabel and Max finally set off. Suzy counts to ten under her breath before following, looking for all the world like she’s just heading off home as usual.

Ed joins them at the doors, greeting Isabel cheerfully before falling into step next to the two of them. Suzy doesn’t bother with stealth, at least not at first; she’s just another student leaving the school a little late, they can’t fault her for walking in the same direction as her towards the school gate.

They also can’t fault her for striding right past the few remaining school buses, though part of her mind lights up with the worry that they might happen to glance back and realize she always takes the bus to and from school, then they’ll know something’s up— Suzy squashes that thought down, taking a deep breath to fight back the knot in her throat and keeping her steps even.

She still can’t get too obviously stealthy once they reach the point where her continuing to follow them is suspicious, as repeatedly ducking behind bushes and lampposts would be even more noteworthy. She doesn’t think they’ve thought to look back anyway— people are far too trusting in the day, like the presence of a thermonuclear explosion in the sky could somehow ward off unwanted followers— so she figures if she just stays far back and looks disinterested they won’t think anything of it.

Contrary to what Collin seems to think, she  _ does _ know how to be subtle once in a while.

About halfway down the hill, in some residential area not too far from Suzy’s home, Suzy is accosted by a malevolent ball of white and grey fur, vibrating intently as it winds its way around her legs to trip her up. From its mouth emits a keening wail, requesting— no, _ demanding _ that she lavish it with affection. She’s met this beast before, and experience tells her nothing can be done but to do as it says and hopes its appetite sated soon.

Or, in layman's terms, the neighborhood cat finds her out in the open and demands she pet it.  _ Honestly, _ she fumes as she struggles to free her legs from the squeaking feline’s grasp,  _ this is why I always take the bus. _

“I don’t have time to pet you, Rascal!” she hisses, unheeding of the cat’s plaintive noises. “I need to score an interview with Isabel, I can’t do that when I’m petting a cat!”

Rascal simply wails louder, and with a disgusted noise she finally relents and leans down to scratch his head. “Yeah, do you like that? Is that enough for you, or am I gonna have to go all out?”

 

The cat lets out another meow in response, this one low and purr-filled. “Oh yeah? Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you!”

 

* * *

 

Max happens to glance back as he, Isabel, and Ed turn the corner, not quite catching what he sees there at first. A moment later, though, his head abruptly snaps back to confirm— Suzy, bane of his existence since something like two weeks ago, crouched on the sidewalk with both hands on a cat to give it the chin-scratches of its life.

He stares, mind pulling a blank for several seconds before Isabel snaps him out of it. “Max? Something wrong?”

Max shakes his head quickly, trying to rid his head of the image as he jogs to catch up. “No, I’m fine, just saw a… weird… toroid. Clipping through the sky. Or something.”

“Oh, yeah, that happens sometimes. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Max just hums quietly, letting his gaze drop to the ground.  _ I guess she’s right, about not worrying. I mean, even the worst people have to have some soft side, right? Even if those people are like… Suzy. _

Pushing those thoughts aside, Max looks back up at Isabel. “So, um, why’d your grandfather say he wanted to meet me?”

Isabel shrugs. “He didn’t, but I’m guessing he just wants to keep up with who all’s in the club. Kinda surprising he hasn’t brought it up earlier, but things were pretty hectic after your girlfriend died.”

Max twitches. “Oh, would you let the train thing go already!?”

“Haha, when you react like that?” Isabel turns to face him, switching her gait to keep her moving as she preemptively forms a shield of spectral energy. “No way!”

Sure enough, Max launches himself at her, scrabbling at the red surface as Isabel laughs. Next to her, Ed makes a surprised noise, making Isabel glance over at him. “What is it?”

In lieu of an answer, Ed just drops to his knees and extends a hand. The reason for his actions becomes clear when a scruffy cat comes running down the sidewalk. Isabel beams and dispels her shield, sidestepping Max, to crouch right next to Ed. “Hey there, little guy,” she chirps when the cat reaches them, sniffing eagerly at each of them in turn before butting its head against Ed’s knees.

Only Max is left unswayed by the kitty’s charms, too busy picking himself off the cement and groaning in pain. So undistracted is he that he’s the only one to notice the outraged squawk originating back the way they came.

When he looks up, he finds Suzy at the street corner breathing heavily and staring at the cat with a look of betrayal. Their eyes meet, and all is silent but for the sounds of Ed and Isabel cooing over the cat— that is to say, it’s not quiet at all.

Then Suzy’s face lights up bright red and she turns tail and flees. Max stares at the spot she was mere moments ago, before once again forcing the moment from his mind and picking himself back up.

 

* * *

 

Suzy’s breath comes in gasps as she struggles to calm her racing heart. This situation could be disastrous, as the worst possible person who could have noticed her got a clear look of her getting a clear look at them. At best, he could somehow extrapolate that she was merely upset at being abandoned by a cat, but that could still be bad as it would mean Maxwell Puckett, Mayview’s latest Sarcasm Master, would know of her greatest weakness.

Before she can spiral too far into panic, though, her phone goes off with a text alert. She takes a deep breath to settle her nerve a little, then pulls out her phone and swipes over to the message.

It’s from Collin.  _ Have you managed to snag that ‘interview’ yet? _

Suzy scowls.  _ no whats w/ the scarequotes _

_ Ignore the scare quotes. What’s your excuse this time? _

_ cat, _ Suzy types out quickly, thumb hovering over the send button a moment as she considers how Collin will react, then hits send.

He barely takes a second to respond.

_ DONT _

_ WRITE AN ARTICLE ON THE CAT _

Suzy puffs up her cheeks in outrage.  _ i wasnt gonna _

_ GOOD _

_ nyway it already abandoned me and i cant get any pics of it without isabel in it and evry1 knos u cant write an article on a cat w/o including pics _

_ Don’t. _

_ i wasnt GONNA im just saying _

_ Wait Isabel you say. Did the cat you were petting abandon you in favor of your arch-nemesis _

_ YES and its AWFUL _

_ Oh that is too rich just wait til Dimitri hears this _

_ yea laugh it up im gonna keep following them now _

Suzy doesn’t wait for Collin to text her back before stuffing her phone back in her pocket and creeping back to the corner to peek out at the section of the Activity Club. They seem to be done petting Rascal, much to his disappointment. It seems he’s only a little disappointed though, based on the volume of his screams. (Ear-piercing, instead of soul-tearing. Suzy’s well acquainted with the difference.)

Thankfully, Rascal doesn’t choose to go for Suzy again, instead leaping onto the fence and escaping into someone’s yard in search of his next victim. Suzy waits until her targets are almost out of sight before stepping back into the open, resuming the casual pace though remaining cautious around corners.

 

* * *

 

The trio of middle-school students eventually turn onto a winding driveway that goes from pavement to dirt a few meters in. She waits a long while at the edge of it, waiting until her marks are well out of sight before taking to the edge of it where she can beat a hasty retreat into the underbrush in case of discovery.

A tunnel through an inconvenient hill in the path of the driveway forces Suzy to stay on the dirt. When she reaches the end, she creeps along the wall to peer out in case there’s anyone watching.

There she finds a towering mansion-dojo that violates every zoning law Suzy can think of, as well as probably a few physical ones.  _ What do they need all those chimneys for? _ she wonders to herself as she darts to the treeline and blends into the underbrush.

She pulls out her binoculars—  _ A good journalist always carries a means of spying on people from a distance, _ she remembers telling Collin when he asked her about it— and circles around the building until the back comes into sight.

There’s a porch in the back, she notes, and on that porch sit Ed, Max, and some dark haired woman with a scar on her face and some of the fiercest eyebrows Suzy has seen. Isabel is nowhere to be seen, though, and Suzy starts to get concerned. ( _ Because she could be anywhere, and I’d never see it coming, _ she tells herself.)

Before she can worry too much, though, Isabel emerges with her jacket tied around her waist. Suzy intently ignores how toned Isabel’s shoulders are, instead focusing on Isabel’s face as she crouches next to Max and says something. Max’s expression goes flat and he says something back that Suzy can’t make out just from reading his lips, and after a bit Suzy lowers the binoculars and bites at her nails.

On the one hand, Isabel is thoroughly surrounded by enemy troops and likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future. On the other, Suzy has a deadline, and surely it couldn’t be that hard to do this? Just… talk to her. Like a normal person.

That thought in mind, Suzy steels herself before pulling herself to her feet and trading her binoculars for a notebook, pulling out her pencil from her hair to complete the look. Shoulders squared, she sets off through the grass.

Max is the first one to notice Suzy, glancing up for a moment and then jolting to his feet as he recognizes her. “What the flip are  _ you _ doing here?!” he yells, pulling in the attention of everyone in the immediate vicinity.

Suzy beams. “What, not even a hello? You’re so rude, Maxwell.”

Max grits his teeth. “ _ Hello, _ Suzy,  _ pleasant weather we’re having here, _ isn’t it? Speaking of here,  _ why are you here?! _ ”

“I walked, duh,” Suzy says, coming to a stop a few feet from Max and feigning indifference by examining her (thoroughly chewed up) nails. “To be a little more specific, though, I happened to see you passing by on my way home, and I figured I’d find out what you nerds were up to. And I gotta say, this is a pretty nice place. You live here?”

“ _ Isabel _ lives here,” Max corrects, sitting back down warily and steepling his fingers. “And by ‘saw us passing by,’ do you by any chance mean you saw those two petting your cat?”

“SHHHHPSHSSHHHHHSHHHH!” Suzy instinctively swipes at Max with her notebook, and he dodges back easily. “Rascal’s not my cat! A-And how the heck do you even know about that?!”

Max smirks. “Just a hunch.”

Before either of those two can continue the conversation in another direction, Isabel butts in. “Suzy, you know that cat? I’ve seen it around, but I’ve never met its owner...”

“That’s because he’s a stray, I just call him Rascal because he used to hold me up for like an hour every day before I started taking the bus,” Suzy answers automatically, then blinks and jumps as she realizes just who was talking. “Oh, and, uh, hi Isabel! Nice house!”

Isabel laughs. “Yeah, it is a pretty nice house, isn’t it? How’s Collin’s nose healing?”

Suzy laughs nervously, tucking her pencil back behind her ear on the way to run her fingers through her hair. “It’s fine, it was only a little bloody after all!”

“Wait, hold up,” Max says, eyes narrowing, “You two know each other?”

“I mean, only a little,” Isabel replies, waving her hand around vaguely. “We’ve talked maybe, once? A few days ago, after her friend tripped on the stairs and took me down with him, she took us to the nurse’s office. Why, are you friends?”

“Not even remotely,” Max snipes, shooting a glare at Suzy. “She’s done nothing but terrorize me since the day I got here. Or like, the day after? She was pretty nice at first, but then I didn’t want to join her club—”

“Okay buster, you can stop talking,” Suzy says, pressing her notebook against Max’s face, before straightening herself back up and putting on her best cheerful-reporter-face to look back at Isabel. “Oh, and by the way Isabel? I don’t suppose I could get an interview with you for an article I want to write for the school newspaper?”

Isabel blinks in surprise. “An interview? About what?”

Ignoring Max’s muffled protests through her hand, Suzy chirps, “It’s about the way you kick your locker open! Pretty much everyone’s heard the rumors about the second floor lockers, and I happened to notice you knew how to do it so I was hoping you could give some tips on proper locker-kicking technique.”

Isabel hums. “I dunno, I’ve never really thought about it,” she says, leaning back with a finger rested thoughtfully on her lips. Max finally gives up, slumping down and glaring at Suzy. “Grandpa doesn’t really like me going out without me alerting him beforehand, and I’m probably gonna be held up for most of the day with martial arts training so I can’t really do an interview...”

Suzy deflates slightly. “I see.”

Picking up on her disappointment, Isabel quickly waves her hands reassuringly. “But I’m sure I can get a while off tomorrow if I ask Grandpa! ...If that works for you?”

“Yeah!” Suzy perks right back up and retrieves her notebook from Max’s face. “Do you have any time in mind? Time and place?”

Isabel hums thoughtfully. “I dunno how long club activities are gonna go on after school,” Isabel admits, “and I can’t think of any places off the top of my head… Tell you what, why don’t we trade numbers and I text you when I’m free tomorrow?”

“That works!” Suzy chirps, and quickly writes down her number at the bottom of the page to hand it over to Isabel. Isabel does the same after Suzy gives her the entire notebook to write on, sans the part where she tears it out, and after some quick goodbyes Suzy turns to leave.

Just before she goes out of earshot, Suzy hears the first thing Ed actually contributes to the conversation— “Dude, Izzy, did you just score a cute girl’s number just by kicking lockers open?”

 

* * *

 

The first thing Suzy does when she gets home is text Collin.  _ i got her number!!!!!!!!!!!!!! _ she sends, and she considers the message a moment before tapping out another few exclamation points and hitting send.

_ Do you realize the way you said that makes it sound like you’re going on a date? _ Collin texts back a moment later, and Suzy flushes.

_ collin what have i told you about reading into things _

_ Read as far into anything as I need to to find a story? I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. You could use a girlfriend to keep you out of trouble a little more. _

_ I DONT ESP NOT ISABEL HECKIGN GUERRA _

_ Whatever you say Suzy. Besides you said ‘i got her number’ not ‘i got the interview’ so does that mean you haven’t actually interviewed her? _

_ well. no. but i got her number so she can tell me when shes free tomorrow! cause shes not free today bc her grandpa is super strict apparently _

_ Wow you actually gathered information on the Activity Club. See this is what happens when you actually talk to people. _

_ shhhhhhhut up i DID try that back then but THEY GAVE ME THE SLIP _

_ And you never tried applying that tactic in any other situations, except when meeting new people who don’t already know what you’re like. _

_ SHUT _

_...What no accompanying ‘up' _

_ fite me _

_ No thanks I have plans. And you’ve already pushed me down the stairs once so I already know how it’ll probably end _

_ that was one time collin _

_ And you still haven’t even apologized. _

_ fite me 2x _

 

* * *

 

The interview happens in a small outdoor cafe down by the lake, an hour after school lets out. Suzy decides not to dress up for it— just a light polo shirt with a dark pink blazer over it and her favorite jeans, oh, and also that butterfly barrette she got last week! And she ties her hair back too, just to keep her hair out of the way. Not because she wants to look good or anything, it’s purely pragmatic.

And she keeps her pencil tucked behind her ear, of course. Just to keep the whole thing casual.

Isabel had texted her the location that morning, restating that she doesn’t know exactly when she’d be free and so that Suzy should keep her afternoon free. Suzy chooses to spend that time lurking in the club room, alternating between listening to the empty Activity Club room ( _ what kind of activities is she being held up by that don’t take place in the club room? Superhero activities, that’s what. Checkmate, Isabel!) _ and staring out the window at the clouds.

Now, however, Isabel has wrapped up her mystery business and the two of them have finally gotten to their long-awaited da— _ interview, it’s an interview. Curse you, Collin. _

Suzy fights back those thoughts as she sits neatly across from Isabel and gives her order to the waitress, a slight flush on her cheeks after Isabel cheerful compliment on Suzy’s hair.  _ It’s just a ploy to get your guard down, _ Suzy tells herself.  _ Don’t let the enemy trick you. _

“So, uh,” Isabel starts eloquently, and Suzy snaps to attention. “How’s this interview gonna go? Are you gonna ask me questions, or…?”

“Oh, right, yes, um,” Suzy scrambles to take out her notebook, flipping to the first empty page and pulling out her pencil to quickly scribble the current date in the corner. “So, how’d you first figure out the proper kicking technique? Did you hear about the rumors previously and want to try it out, or was it just something you stumbled on by accident?”

Isabel taps her finger on her lips thoughtfully. “To be honest, I didn’t really realize there were even rumors about that. I found out how to do it by accident about two years ago when I...” Isabel shifts in her seat, biting her lips thoughtfully and glancing around before finally looking back at Suzy. “...tried to dropkick this guy who was pestering me. I missed, but I happened to hit one of the lockers at the right angle to make it open.”

Suzy eagerly scribbles that down, nodding at the appropriate times, and then sits back up. “Someone was pestering you, and your first instinct was to dropkick them?” she asks.

“Well, no, my first instinct was to jab him in the armpit of the arm he was using to hold my backpack out of my reach,” Isabel explains, demonstrating with a short jab to the air with her fist. “But he dodged it, and ran off to the other side of the room, so then I decided to dropkick him. Climb on the lockers on my side of the hall, jump off, use the extra height to see if I could knock him down. Didn’t work, though, and I kinda fumbled the jump anyway else I wouldn’t have hit the locker right anyway.”

Suzy hums as she writes that down. “You had bullying problems then?”

Isabel laughs. “Emphasis on  _ had _ . That guy got a broken kneecap and his buddies lost a few teeth, and though they tried a few more times after that it always ended the same way. By the next week I’m pretty sure I’d made it clear to them that I was untouchable.”

Suzy nods as she writes, already mentally planning the next headline.  _ Resident Badass Kicks Open Lockers, Doors, Our Hearts. Is that too much? Wait, hang on, that’s too similar to the article on bus-jumping, dangit. _ “Okay, going back to the locker kicking,” Suzy begins, “Do you have anything to say on how you do it? Like, where all your limbs go before and during the kick?”

Isabel makes a thoughtful face, eyes flickering up as the waitress arrives with their orders— Chocolate sundae for Isabel, strawberry milkshake for Suzy. Suzy idly notes this down as Isabel thanks the waitress, making sure to underline the chocolate several times.

“I… haven’t really thought too much about it, actually,” Isabel admits, picking at her ice cream. “It’s really hard to put into words, especially where everything goes? I mean once I know how the position feels it’s really easy to slip into, but like, I’m not so good at describing it?”

Suzy nods understandingly as she writes all that down. “Maybe once we’re done here we could go somewhere you can demonstrate, I could take pictures to put in the article?”

Isabel nods, spoon stuck in her mouth, and she quickly swallows the ice cream on it, winces, and replies around the utensil, “Yeah, that sounds like it’ll work.”

Suzy nods happily as she writes that down, then pushes her notebook to the side and points at her milkshake. “So, how about we take a break to finish our food, then go do that photoshoot?”

Isabel nods quickly, already stuffing another spoonful of chocolatey goodness in her face. Suzy, on the other hand, sips more delicately at her drink. For a few minutes they fall into relative silence, Isabel focused entirely on her sundae while Suzy stares thoughtfully at Isabel.

_ Resident Badass Kicks Open Lockers. “I never really thought about it that much,” she says. _ Suzy frowns.  _ No, that’s too long. Maybe I should paraphrase her a little? “I never really thought about it” maybe? _

“What’s got you staring at me like that?” Isabel asks, an amused smile on her face, and Suzy jolts back to the present.

“Oh, uh, n-nothing! J-just thinking about what to write in the headline for the article.” Suzy shifts and glances at Isabel's sundae, only half eaten. “Did you say something?”

“No, you were just staring really intensely is all.” Isabel jabs at her ice cream, pauses, and looks back up. “Hey, I’m curious, what got you into journalism as a hobby anyway?”

Suzy blinks, then gives an amused grin. “Now you’re asking me questions? I forget, who was supposed to be getting interviewed here?”

Isabel sticks her tongue out at her. “I dunno, it slipped my mind. Maybe I was asking you about ghosts?”

“Psh, yeah, as if,” Suzy waves her hand dismissively. “Everyone knows ghosts aren’t real.”

Isabel looks amused. “Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, if ghosts were real, wouldn’t that be freaky? You could have a ghost giving you bunny ears in _ every picture you ever take, _ and you’d never know! Heck, there could be one giving you bunny ears right now!”

Suzy laughs, then pauses as Isabel gives a meaningful glance just over her shoulder. Suzy whips around, arm passing through thin air, and after a moment looks back at Isabel with narrowed eyes. “You’re messing with me.”

Isabel beams. “Yeah. It wasn’t a ghost.”

Suzy glares a Isabel for a moment, then sighs and shifts back into position on her chair. “You gonna finish that?” she asks, waving her almost-empty cup at Isabel’s sundae.

Isabel considers the ice cream, then shakes her head and pushes it away. “Nah, you can have it if you want.”

Suzy gladly takes it, digging in and stuffing a large spoonful in her mouth before shifting it off to the side and asking, “D’you have any places in mind for where we can do the shoot? ‘Cause I don’t really wanna walk all the way back up to the school.”

Isabel thinks for a moment, then shrugs. “I don’t really know what makes for a good place to do a photoshoot. Maybe we could go looking once you’re done eating?”

Suzy nods, already having swallowed her first mouthful and halfway done with what Isabel hadn’t eaten. Barely a minute later they’re paying the bill— or rather, Isabel’s paying the bill, because her grandfather gave her a bit of spending money for the interview. Suzy protests, saying she’s the one who asked for Isabel to join her out here in the first place, but Isabel has none of that.

They wander the streets for a while in search of a good place, eventually settling for an alleyway formed by the gap between two people’s yards. It’s well within Rascal’s territory, Suzy notes as she takes out her phone, so she hopes they can get this done quickly before he cuts the event short by demanding pettings.

As it turns out, Suzy has enough time to shoot half a dozen pictures of Isabel’s kicking form from various angles before the white and grey stray makes his appearance. He picks his timing perfectly to leap the fence and wind around Isabel’s supporting leg just before Suzy takes another picture, and then the photoshoot is called off on account of soft fur and rumbly purrs.

They’re held up another twenty minutes before Isabel finally wrenches herself away with a regretful look, citing that she can’t stay out much longer without Grandpa getting annoyed. Suzy waves her off, pausing her pettings just long enough to lift Rascal in her arms and stand up.

She stares after Isabel for a long moment, even after Isabel’s turned away herself. As Isabel begins to round the corner, Suzy regretfully pulls her eyes away.

Then something flickers around Isabel, and Suzy’s eyes snap back to her just in time to catch—

A wispy purple haze trailing behind her shoulders, wavering into the shape of a stream of hearts for barely a second before flickering back out of view as if it was never there.

_ What was... _ Suzy frowns, then shakes her head and turns away. _ Just a trick of the light. I’d better get home and start working on that article. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not pictured: isabel trailing little red hearts all the way home and getting heckled about it by ed. because she's also super gay


	5. Chapter 5

_ Resident Badass Kicks Open Lockers (Didn’t Realize It Was All That Remarkable) _ is the headline Suzy finally settles on, attached to an article detailing the rumor and Suzy’s discovery of Isabel's ability to confirm it, along with a transcript of the interview and one of the pictures. (The final one, with the cat, because the article isn’t remotely about cats and Collin can’t stop her.)

(Dimitri, on the other hand, is her editor, and after the third straight week of nothing but articles on the many cats of Mayview he put his foot down and banned them. It’s the only time he’s ever gone against her, and with the benefit of hindsight Suzy finds he was wise to stop her then. Not that she'll ever admit it out loud, of course.)

The locker kicking article is the front page article, of course, but Suzy manages to scrounge up a few stories from the rumor mill to pad out the other side. Her personal pet theory on the Activity Club’s superpowers is crammed in between a picture of Ms. Baxter photoshopped to have a third warped eye on the back of her head and a paragraph talking about Mr. Starchman’s latest exploits. It’s regrettable she couldn't write a full article on it, but Suzy comforts herself with the assurance that once she has more solid proof she’ll expose them for what they are.

_ Though if they’re really superheroes fighting crime in the dead of night, wouldn’t me exposing them be a bad thing? Like, exposing their true identities to whatever evil they’re fighting... _ Suzy hums, pulling the last batch of paper from the printer and adding it to the pile. Idly, she taps the stack against the table to neaten it up.

_ Well, whatever. Not really my problem, is it? _

What is her problem, however, is the hallucinations. While she’d initially shrugged off the haze around Isabel as a trick of the light, and weird see-through purple creatures occasionally flitting around her ceiling in the dead of night were easily chalked it up to a lack of sleep, the fact remains that a weird serpent thing nearly tripped her up on the way into the bus.

She manages to pass off the stutter in her step as her just remembering something all of a sudden, and Collin looks like he believes her. Once they’re situated, Suzy immediately turns to stare pensively out the window as she always does when she has something deep to think about.

The trip up to school is largely unremarkable, (aside from some giant purple koi fish flickering into being in a circle around the peak of the other hill,) giving Suzy more than enough time to think up a theory of why it’s happening.

_ Isabel’s responsible for this somehow, _ she immediately establishes, winding a lock of hair around her pencil.  _ She must have slipped me some kind of delayed-effect hallucinogenic. But when did she have the chance? _

Suzy thinks it over a moment, then lets her forehead drop against the window with a groan. (“You okay?” Collin asks. Suzy ignores him.)

_ The ice cream. Of course. She had plenty opportunity while I was distracted. Why did I just take it without questioning her? _ Suzy hits her head against the window a few more times for good measure, then straightens back up. “I’m fine. Just thinking. I haven’t suddenly lost my mind or anything.”

“No,” Collin agrees, “that happened back in seventh grade when you couldn’t figure out the Activity Club. And then you spent three weeks writing about nothing but cats, and declared someone you’d barely spoken to your arch-nemesis.” Ignoring the glare Suzy shoots his way, Collin glances at the window. “Why were you trying to beat out your last few remaining brain cells this time?”

Suzy grumbles wordlessly under her breath, then rests her elbow on the window sill and stares out impassively. “I may have made a small mistake during the interview with Isabel yesterday,” she replies. “It doesn’t concern you anyway, so don’t worry about it.”

Collin raises an eyebrow at the back of her head. “What, did you forget to ask her a question or something?”

Suzy glances back at him, irritated. “Collin, what did I  _ just _ say?”

“I know, but it’s not worth beating yourself up over that. You should focus more on trying to atone for more serious things, like  _ pushing two people down the— _ ”

The bus comes to a stop a minute later, and Collin climbs off behind Suzy nursing a freshly-bruised cheekbone. Suzy struts ahead of him, radiating aggressive haughtiness, and Collin can’t muster much more than a weak glare directed at her back.

“I’m not gonna let that go until you apologize, you know,” Collin mutters, and Suzy half turns to glare right back.

“Now why would I do that?” she asks, bag slung over one shoulder.

“I dunno, because you’re genuinely sorry?” Collin suggests, and Suzy gives him a sceptical look. “Yeah, that was a long shot anyway.” Collin trots past, and Suzy hurries after before matching pace with him. “Really, I’d just settle for you apologizing to make me stop pestering you. Just as long as I can get  _ something _ .”

Suzy huffs and turns her nose up snootily. “Yeah, like that’ll ever happen. There’s  _ pride _ at stake here, Collin.”

“I could quit the Journalism Club, you know. There’s nothing stopping me from just refusing to do what you tell me.” Collin pushes the door open, holding as Suzy passes by before letting it go and trotting at her heel. “I could go on strike. God knows you’d never get anything done then.”

Suzy gives him another skeptical look. “Yeah, right, you could never manage that.”

“Oh yeah?” Collin stops and turns to stand in Suzy’s way. “Try me.”

Suzy glares at Collin. “Get out of my way.”

Collin hums thoughtfully. “Lemme think about that… no. I don’t think I will.”

“I can just walk around you, you know. The hallway’s not narrow.” She casually gestures at all the students flooding around them, none of which give them more than a passing glance.

Collin crosses his arms. “But will you? I’ve known you for years, Suzy, and I’ve never met someone who could out-stubborn you.”

“Oh yeah? Then why are you trying?”

Metaphorical sparks fly between Suzy and Collin, their eyes met in an informal staring contest. The winner, whoever could last the longest, would hold the honor of having come out on top of this particular encounter.

Suzy’s eyes start aching a minute in, glare settling into more of a pouty scowl, while Collin remains steadfastly smug. Two minutes in, the stalemate is finally broken by a flicker of purple in the corner of Suzy’s eye making her instinctively glance over.

It’s another hallucination, this time of a crowd of mice in little pith helmets marching along the wall. Suzy quickly looks back at Collin once she realizes she got distracted, but by then his expression has already gone full smug-prick. He doesn’t say anything, but Suzy glares fiercely at him anyway.

“Fine,” she mutters, finally sidestepping to go around him. “I’m gonna be late to class if this goes on for much longer.”

Collin doesn’t say anything as she slinks away, and Suzy pretends she can’t feel his eyes on her back as she climbs the stairs— purple apparitions flickering out once more as she reaches the first landing.

 

* * *

 

Class is remarkably unremarkable, especially after Suzy decides to completely ignore the flickers of purple in the edges of her vision.  _ I can’t show weakness to the enemy, _ she thinks to herself as she eats lunch and ignores the lines of military mice guarding every table. ( _ Purple as always, _ part of her notes, _ but there’s some patches of green showing through _ ) None of the members of the Activity Club are anywhere to be seen, she notes.

Neither is Dimitri she realizes, after her latest rant to Collin goes through its entirety without a single sleepy comment either defending the latest target of her ire or fanning the flames. “Hey, Collin, have you seen Dimitri anywhere today?” she asks, after a quick scan of the cafeteria shows no sign of him having blown her off to hang with someone else.

“Hm?” Collin looks up from his milk. “Oh, no, I don’t think so. I take it you haven’t either?”

Suzy props her head up on her hand. “Why else d’you think I asked? What do you think might’ve happened to him?”

“I dunno, he got a cold and decided to stay home today?”

Collin glances up after a moment to find Suzy giving him a sceptical look. He sighs. “Right, I forgot, you don’t accept logical explanations. Lemme see...”

He shifts his weight to stare at the ceiling, bringing his hands up to start ticking off fingers. “He got kidnapped, murdered, kidnapped and murdered, murdered and had his corpse held ransom, got lost in the woods,” Collin rattles off, pausing here for a short breath before continuing, “went for a swim in the lake and drowned, stepped in a fairy ring and sentenced to fifty years of servitude in the fae realm— he’ll be back next week— enthralled by a vampire queen, enthralled by a  _ fairy _ queen...”

At some point during Collin’s listing of improbable fates that could have befallen on their good friend Dimitri Danger, said Good Friend wandered in and positioned himself right behind Collin with an increasingly amused look.

“...went for an early morning walk in the graveyard and got eaten by zombies, the same but with vampires instead of zombies, or ghouls, abducted by aliens who wanted to experiment on him, abducted by aliens who wanted to eat him, realized his true alien heritage and went with them willingly to claim his rightful throne, or ran away to the circus. That’s all the explanations you and Dimitri together have used to explain his absences, barring a few repeats. ”

By now, Collin has ticked and unticked all the fingers on both hands several times, and Suzy has to give him credit— that list must’ve taken  _ ages _ to assemble.

“You memorized all that?” Dimitri asks, and Collin yelps.

“How long have you been standing there?!” Collin asks, voice cracking, and Dimitri sits down next to him with an easygoing smile.

“Somewhere around the many ways I’ve gotten stuck on trains,” he says, pulling his lunch bag open and retrieving an apple. “Only half of which, might I note, I actually came up with. For the record, this time I was negotiating a peace treaty with the ghost mouse military occupying the school.”

Collin gives him a weary look, already pulling out a notebook to write that down. “That’s a new one,” he notes, and Dimitri just hums in response.

Suzy, meanwhile, is resolutely not so much as glancing at the spot she saw mice lining up on the table— no longer visible, of course, the hallucinations never last more than a few seconds at a time.  _ It can’t be a coincidence, can it? _ she wonders, giving Dimitri a thoughtful look, then breaking it off when he meets her gaze curiously.

_ No, it’s probably just a coincidence. _ She pokes at her sandwich, suddenly finding her appetite gone.  _ If it’s not then, well, I’m sure I’ll figure it out soon enough. Right? Right. I can do this. _

_ Besides, it’s not like it’ll last for more than like, a day, tops. _

 

* * *

 

If Suzy’s been acting strange today, Dimitri hasn’t noticed. It’s not the first time he’s had a stressful day— Collin’s list of excuses can attest to that— but dealing with the military mice was such a pain he really just wants to curl up in a dark corner and take a nap. More than usual, that is.

As much as he wishes otherwise, though, he still has a long to-do list, only half of which can be put off until another day. Chief among them being the problem Suzy had created last week.

Well, technically speaking, he can put it off as long as he likes. He’s put it off  _ this _ long, after all. But then he’d had the relative freedom of Suzy being stressed over the next news article, and now that she’s got that out of the way it’s only a matter of time before she unearths the true purpose of the Activity Club.

So. Can’t put it off any longer.

With that in mind, Dimitri excuses himself halfway through the lunch period— pretending he doesn’t notice Suzy leaping to her feet precisely ten seconds after. He definitely didn’t catch her mouth moving as she counted down under her breath, no-siree.

He doesn’t need to come up with a plan to get her off his tail, thankfully, as she heads off in the opposite direction from him once outside the cafeteria. The Journalism clubroom, if he has to guess, which is… problematic, somewhat, but he can deal. It’s far from the first time he’s moved behind her back.

He pauses by the bathroom for a glass of water— using a cup he took from the kitchen— before resuming his leisurely trip to the Activity Club room, occasionally taking a sip like any normal kid carrying their drink around the school would.

There’s no difficulty entering the room, owing to the fact that it’s not even locked, (though even if it was, he still has the key.  _ They never asked for it back, did they? _ he muses to himself) and it’s momentarily concerning that he can see signs of scratches around the lock. That concern is immediately alleviated, however, when he remembers how Suzy planted the bug in the first place.

As it turns out, the room is unlocked because the room is not empty. Max is splayed out across one of the sofas, a DS of some sort in his hands, and he glances up at the sound of the door opening. He blinks, clicking the game shut as Dimitri shuts the door behind him. “Uh, hey, Dimitri.”

Dimitri hums shortly and nods back in greeting, making a beeline for the desk at the back of the room. Max sits up to watch him go, a faintly bemused look on his face as Dimitri starts quietly shifting things around and looking on undersides.

“What are you—” Max starts to ask, before Dimitri cuts him off with a shushing motion. Max gives him a confused look, to which Dimitri responds by motioning for him to come closer.

Dimitri sets the glass of water aside and pulls out his phone, tapping out a note and holding it up for Max to see once he’s gotten close enough.  _ Suzy planted a bug somewhere in the desk. Act natural. _

“ _ Again _ with the bugs?” Max mutters under his breath, leaning forward to read the message, before leaning back as Dimitri sets his phone down. He watches Dimitri carefully tilt the computer monitor to check its underside, and just when the silence starts to get stifling Dimitri opens his mouth.

“What’s that game you were playing?” he asks, lifting a stack of papers to check underneath.

“Eh? Oh, this?” Max pulls the DS out from his hoodie pocket, flipping it back open. “It’s just Pokemon.”

“Which version?”

“Um… X, I think?” Max shrugs, watching Dimitri carefully tug open a drawer. “It’s Isaac’s, actually, he didn’t have the patience to hatch a billion Sharpedo for one shiny, so I’m helping out. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious,” Dimitri says, voice drowning out the sound of him rifling through stationary. His phone buzzes on the desk, and he glances at it just long enough to see it’s a message from Suzy. “Changing the subject, so you have a family?”

“Uh, yeah?” Max raises a quizzical eyebrow. “What kinda question is that?”

“Just making sure. What’re they like?” Dimitri asks, sliding the drawer shut and bending to look at the underside of the desk.

“Well, there’s my little sister Zoey, she’s kind of a brat...” Max starts, Dimitri only half listening as he casts his eyes along the corners of the wood in search of anything out of place. It’s only on the second go around that they catch on a strip of scotch tape in the near corner.

With as much care as he can manage, Dimitri tears the tape off, taking with it the tiny coin-sized microphone it had held in place. Max peters off when Dimitri returns from the depths with it in hand, and watches in silence as Dimitri sets it aside and picks up his phone to type another message.

_ Drop the bug in the water after I leave,  _ is all it says, and when Max nods Dimitri lets out a sigh and sticks his phone back in his pocket. “Well, that was real interesting, but I’d better go. Places to be, you know?”

“...Yeah, see you.” Max turns his head to watch as Dimitri brushes past him on the way to the door, waiting a heartbeat after it clicks shut before turning back to the desk and picking up the bug.

 

* * *

 

Suzy winces at the sound of watery static blaring through the headphones.  _ Again with the water, _ she fumes internally, tugging off her headphones and slamming them on the desk.  _ Again with the water and again with Max! _

For a moment, Suzy fantasizes about marching over there and dumping that glass of water all over Max’s head.  _ It’d get his hat soaked too, it’d serve him right, _ she thinks, gritting her teeth before taking a deep breath and settling back in her chair.

“Okay, there’s no need to get hasty,” she whispers to herself, steepling her fingers and turning around in the chair. “You’ve got more than enough time to get revenge on them. You’ve recorded  _ lots _ of intel on them by now, surely there’s something to glean from all of it...”

With that thought in mind, Suzy spins back to the desk and goes for the refurbished-radio-thing she’s not sure the name of. She pulls a tape out from the mess and clicks it into a slot, and after pulling the headphones back on she presses the start button and shuts her eyes to listen.

_ “...Uh, excuse me, can I say something?” _ the recording says into her ears, behind the noise like rustling paper, and Suzy’s listened to this so many times she could probably recite it from memory.

“See, I’m pretty sure you’re basing this whole feud on a misunderstanding,” Suzy mutters sarcastically alongside Isaac’s voice.“Max isn’t the one who—”

A loud chittering noise right in Suzy’s ear makes her jolt upright, eyes wide as she looks around wildly for the source. Nothing appears evident, and the recording goes on unfettered.  _ “...the guy you have tied up under the desk.” _

Again, mouse-like chittering fills Suzy’s ears, though without the element of surprise she can tell it’s actually coming from the headphones.  _ That’s definitely new, _ she thinks, pressing the headphones in and listening intently. Something purple flickers at the edge of her vision, and she barely flinches.

_ “Dude, I can still see him just fine. I get you’re color-blind and all but—” _

In the recording, a distant door slams open, and Suzy winds back a few seconds to listen to the second period of squeaks a second time. And then a third.  _ Something about that noise, _ she thinks,  _ it almost sounds like a distorted voice— _

“You wanted to talk to me?” Dimitri asks, pushing the door open, and the fourth re-wind of the chittering cuts out halfway to return to just rustling paper and Isaac talking to no one.

Suzy growls in frustration like a cat someone’s trying to take food from, and Dimitri takes a step back. “I could… come back later,” he says, a bead of sweat rolling down his neck.

Taking a moment to compose herself again, Suzy turns the radio-thing off and sets the headphones down. “No, don’t bother, you just caught me at the wrong time. Come on in.”

Dimitri nods, tugging the door closed behind him and moving to stand across the desk from Suzy. Suzy props her chin on her steepled fingers and gives him a dry stare. “So, I couldn’t help but overhear you having a chat with Max just now.”

Dimitri blinks slowly. “Did you?”

“What, did you think I wouldn’t?” Suzy scoffs. “You were  _ right there. _ Consorting with the enemy. Mind explaining that?”

“I thought I left a book there,” Dimitri says, pausing to yawn before continuing. “Turns out it was in my locker.”

“When did you have an opportunity to leave anything in the clubroom?” Suzy asks. “Have you been consorting with the enemy  _ even more _ behind my back?”

“Okay, it’s less that I thought I left it there and more… I thought one of them took it. But like I said, it was in my locker.” Dimitri crosses his arms and gives Suzy a dry look. “Are you interrogating me?”

“Yes.”

“Why? It’s not like I did anything, I just asked Max about his game and his family,” Dimitri reasons. “Heck, if anything I helped you get information. Now you know Max has an annoying little sister, and Isaac plays Pokemon.”

“I already knew about the Pokemon,” Suzy mutters, but then sighs and spins the chair away from Dimitri. “But fine, you’ve got a point. You’re off the hook.”

Dimitri nods at her turned back and starts to step away before Suzy abruptly twists back and shoves her finger in his face. “But!”

“But?” Dimitri asks, raising an eyebrow and leaning back to look at Suzy’s finger.

“But,” Suzy repeats, dropping back into her seat and spinning away from him again, “if I catch you chatting them up again, I  _ will _ investigate further.” She spins back just long enough to shoot him a serious look, fingers steepled. “Mark my words.”

“Your words have been marked,” Dimitri says, hesitating a moment before continuing. “But, uh… it’s a little hard to be intimidated properly with you spinning like that.”

“What? How come?” Suzy asks, hair flying around her face as the office chair comes dangerously close to taking flight from all the rotation.

“It’s not very consistent. Normally you’d want to either constantly face me or away from me, or at most dramatically turn, not… well...” Dimitri trails off as Suzy catches her foot on the desk to stop.

“Dee,” she says, trying to fix her eyes on him but failing as they keep trying to drift off to the side. “I think I know just fine how to intimidate my subordinates. Get out of my office.”

“Yes sir, ma’am,” Dimitri says, finally turning to leave. “Just giving my two cents.”

 

* * *

 

The day passes in relative normalcy from there on, as much as is possible when purple shapes flicker in the edges of Suzy’s vision every other hour. She doesn’t get another opportunity to look for that change in the Activity Club recording again, that particular tape getting wrecked by Dimitri tripping with a drink in hand— he’s summarily banned from the clubroom until further notice, and Suzy’s glad she keeps the rest of the tapes hidden in the desk.

Now, however, she’s stepped outside for a breath of fresh air (and also to let Collin pick up the bookshelf she knocked over trying to get at Dimitri’s throat. He’s like a combination information gatherer/maid!) and is currently positioned at the base of a tree, flicking through the photo gallery.

_ Cat picture, cat picture, cat video, blackmail picture… _ she mentally drones, barely taking a moment to identify each item before moving on.  _ Cat picture, blackmail video, video of the Activity Club running around the school like weirdos… hey, I forgot about that one. _

On a whim, Suzy taps the video and settles back to rewatch it. It’s just as shaky as it was the first time, and Suzy finds herself having difficulty focusing on it— something she chalks up to the uneven recording and the shakiness of her hands—  _ when did my hands start shaking? _

Letting out a breath, Suzy carefully places her phone down on her legs and holds her hands up to her face. A mottled white-and-violet snake winds around the dirt below her, not all there, and then reality snaps back into focus and the purple vanishes.

A dark shape on the phone screen arrests Suzy’s attention, drawing her to look back at it. Isabel and Ed blur erratically across the hall, trailing red and green respectively, and an indistinct form of something follows— not a single mass but numerous tiny shapes swarming together. When it snatches up the phone, still recording, she can see it’s hundreds of mice dressed like roman soldiers.

Unbidden, Suzy’s mind drifts back to something said in the ruined recording, the one she’d already memorized.

“Ah,” she says, voice far from stable. “Jerry’s ancient roman cousin indeed.”


	6. Chapter 6

Suzy rewatches that video a dozen times more before she moves from that spot, the sun dipping dangerously close to the horizon before Collin finally comes looking for her.

_ He must’ve been worried about me, _ Suzy eventually realizes while preparing for bed. The thought almost makes her feel guilty for elbowing him in the face and running off, but she pushes the feeling aside and drops into her bed, shooing away a tiny peacock doll trying to blend in with her stuffed animals.

_ That’s another thing, _ she muses, rolling onto her back and pulling out her phone.  _ The apparitions have upgraded to full color and for all appearances seem to be real. Except I’m the only person who can see them. _

As if she can’t clearly see it, the peacock once again creeps onto her bed and pulls itself between two teddy bears. Suzy glares at it, moving to pick it up and remove it more forcefully, before she pauses.

_ Am I really sure no one else can see them? _ On a whim, Suzy snaps a picture of the dolls, apparition-peacock included, and texts it to Collin with a message.

_ quick question how many toys are in this picture _ she asks.

It takes Collin a minute to respond.  _ There’s 3 why are you asking me this at 11 pm _

_ kthnx gn collin, _ Suzy sends back, putting her phone down to ignore whatever angry messages Collin sends about how that didn’t answer her question.

“So,” she muses aloud, patting the peacock on the head— it certainly feels like it’s made of felt. “Collin, at least, can’t see you. I mean, he could be lying, but you look just like a normal doll when you’re not moving. So I doubt it.”

The peacock croons and flicks its tail feathers, resting its head on a teddy’s shoulder. The fabric doesn’t so much as shift under its weight, even as the bird visibly relaxes onto it, which gives Suzy pause.

“...I swear I saw you pass through that thing just a minute ago.” Suzy flops back against her pillows and drapes an arm over her eyes. “I really need to figure out how you work,” she mutters.

Something pale flickers on the other side of her eyelids, and she cracks the open to find wisps of pale pink… smoke? Drifting off of her sleeve. Were that to happen at the end of any other day, she might freak out, but as it stands she just kind of stares at it for a long moment before dropping her arm to her side and rolling over.

“Nah,” she says into her pillow. “Not gonna deal with that. Not today.”

She’s dealt with enough. Purple wispy things, then less-purple not-so-wispy things. And the Activity Club. She’s done. Not dealing with any more of this bull-huey until she’s good and ready.

She’s definitely not shaking. When she curls up into a ball, fists clenched around the sheets and pulling them with her to wrap around her body, messing up the careful order of the pillows and toys and making the peacock squawk, it’s definitely not because she’s trying to distract herself from the events of all of today by replacing it with the feeling of fabric tight against her back.

She can definitely breathe right. Not hyperventilating at all, not shaking, not feeling like the stress of everything that’s suddenly changed is going to crush her,  _ definitely not having a panic attack just because she started seeing a few measly ghosts or whatever _

“Geez, what’d I do to get stuck with a trainwreck like you?”

Suzy blinks, uncoiling just enough to lift her head and realize everything looks just a little off. Like everything’s been drawn in with pastels, flat and minimalist in color instead of real, and fading into a white void for the floor.

“I mean, come on, couldn’t I at least have had the dignity of them finding some experienced spectral to exploit me for the rest of my death?” the same voice that had spoken before asks, sending her searching around in search of the source. “But no, I get abandoned in a desk and picked up by a mess who can barely function after  _ one _ bad day.”

“I’ll have you know I’ve had several bad days in a row,” Suzy announces to the room at large, sitting up with her blanket still pulled around her shoulders. She’s amazed at how smooth her voice comes out. “And who the heck are you, showing up in my room and critiquing my stress responses?”

“Oh like I buy that,” she voice says, and Suzy finally narrows it down to being above her. It’s hard to make out, given the odd texturing of this weird world, but it seems rather like something’s sitting on top of her bed’s canopy. “You were fine up until just now, and then one little display of spectral energy sends you crying into your blankets.”

“You’re a jerk,” Suzy replies. A quick look around reveals no long objects with which to prod this obnoxious presence with, so instead she grabs onto her backpack— still half-full of heavy textbooks— and swings it up to throw at the impression on the canopy.

To Suzy’s satisfaction, this disrupts the delicate balance of the thing perched over her bed and sends it toppling to the ground. The first thing that strikes her is the fact that this thing is very, clearly, not remotely human.

(Not that that surprises her anymore.)

Sure, it’s got the vague shape down, but that’s where the similarities end. Its body is a large notepad, pages yellowed and smudged with ink, and its head is one of those erasers you stick on the end of your pencil when the original eraser runs out. The kind with a goofy face on it. Its limbs are thin and dark, like flexible pencil lead, and it wears a pair of purple-pink pen caps like boots.

“Oh, would you stop thinking of me as an it?!” the apparition snaps, leaping to its feet and glaring… at(?) Suzy.  _ It’s a little hard to tell when its eyes don’t face the same direction. _ “I’ll have you know I’m male!”

Suzy glares back at… him, raising her backpack in preparation to swing it again. “Sorry if I’m a little unsure what to think of the thing that just appeared over my bed and started insulting me,” she grumbles. “And you still haven’t answered my question. Who the  _ heck _ do you think you are?”

The apparition sniffs, leaning back against Suzy’s desk chair. “Why should I tell that to the person who just swung a backpack at me? That was really rude, you know.”

“I’ll do it again,” Suzy threatens, brandishing her bag, and the apparition takes a step back. “That’s what I thought. Can’t you at least tell me your name?”

“Hmm, let me think,” the apparition says, resting one hand on his chin and looking around thoughtfully. The way his eyes swivel around ( _ it’s really more like spinning) _ is odd, each googly eye facing the opposite direction of the other and never going near the center.

For a long moment, the only noise is the apparition making increasingly exaggerated hums and haws. Suzy’s expression slowly drops into a dull glare, and finally she gets tired of waiting. “Make up your mind already!” she snaps, and the apparition laughs.

“What, you couldn’t gather from all the stalling?” he asks. “The answer’s obviously  _ no way in hell, _ kid, you haven’t given any reason to tell you that.”

Suzy growls from deep in her throat. “Well then what the heck am I supposed to call you?”

The apparition shrugs. “I dunno, make something up. Not my problem.”

“Uh, it kinda is,” Suzy says, crossing her arms. “What if I start calling you something ridiculous like Sir Jerkbag of Buttholington?”

“That’s way too long, you’d shorten it to something more memorable.”

That gives Suzy some pause. “...Okay, you’re not wrong, but you’re taking offence to its  _ length? _ Not the fact that I just insulted you to your face?”

“Kid.” The apparition levels a dry stare at Suzy. Or least, his face is pointing towards her, but his eyes… you know what I mean. “Kid. That was the weakest insult I’ve ever been given. You’ll have to try harder to get a rise out of me.”

“Uh-huh.” Suzy glances around, finally properly taking in the odd state of her room, and then she narrows her eyes and looks back at him. “Well, if you’re not gonna be helpful, mind putting my room back to normal? I can’t sleep on a weird drawing of my bed.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” the apparition says, waving a hand dismissively, turning away. “I’ll let you have your beauty sleep. Oh, and remember to take that pencil out of your hair. Don’t want to roll onto it and break it.”

“Wha?” Suzy reaches up to touch behind her ear, and realizes to her chagrin that he’s right— she was all ready to go to sleep with her prized trophy in a position where it could get damaged. Before she can express any kind of thanks, though, the pastels wash away to reveal her normal bedroom, the apparition vanishing with it.

Suzy blinks in the sudden moonlight, and the feeling of something small nudging against the back of her leg makes her look down. There stands the peacock doll, giving her an inquisitive look. “Sorry about that,” Suzy says automatically, crouching to give the peacock a gentle pat on the head. “Some guy wanted to talk to me and I kinda had to take him.”

The peacock croons, then ducks away from Suzy and bounces up onto the bed. It settles into her pillows, where Suzy joins it facedown a moment later.

“And that, my friends, is all that I am willing to deal with today,” Suzy mutters into the pillows, words half-directed at the stuffed animals and half just talking to herself. After a moment, she remembers to remove the pencil and set it aside, and then she burrows into her covers once again and lets herself drift off into sleep.

 

* * *

 

After much deliberation early that morning, Suzy decides to play sick and stay home that day. Not because of any emotional distress or anything, she just needs all the free time she can get to formulate a plan of action for this latest development.

It’s possible— nay, probable— that a significant part of her was hoping it’d all go away after a night’s rest. That part of her was what got her through the conversation with Eraserhead, who incidentally has yet to reappear to be informed of his new nickname. Oddly enough, though, some part of her got the feeling he already knew the moment she wrote it out in her notebook. Something in the way she held that pencil…

But that’s ridiculous. Wherever he’d come from and wherever he’d gone, there’s no way he can know everything going on in Suzy’s head. So she’s elected to have that be the first thing out of her mouth the next time she sees his goofy face.

That being said, it quickly occurs to Suzy that she has no idea how to spend all this newfound free time. She can’t exactly go out all day without rousing her parents’ suspicion, and both Collin and Dimitri are in school and thus untextable. Not that she’d want to approach them anyway.  _ They’d just decide I’m being delusional. ‘Even more than usual,’ Collin would say. _

With a frustrated sigh, Suzy rolls onto her chest and fumbles around for a notebook. “May as well start taking notes,” she mutters. She flips the notebook to the first empty page, noting the multitude of Isabel scribbles along the way and resolutely ignoring them, and then settles down with her pencil in hand to think.

After a moment, she scribbles in a single word at the top.  _ Apparitions. _ She considers it for a second, underlines it several times, then moves on to detailing everything leading up to her current position. Starting with the first purple image in the edge of her vision, going through to the mice occupying the school, moving onto the changed recording (she’s sure it’s related) and the video of Isabel and Edward.

Then she flips to a new page and writes in bold at the top  _ Eraserhead. _ She draws him from memory, and hopes she got it right, then moves onto the next page. There, she draws the peacock doll— this one is much easier, given that it’s sitting right there on her desk. It’s no longer animated, seeming for all the world like a totally normal doll but for the fact that it can only interact with Suzy.

From there, Suzy runs into a wall on things to note down.  _ The Activity Club, maybe? I don’t really have any solid information on them, though… _

Something moves outside Suzy’s window, drawing her eyes over to what little of the sky she can see. Instead of blue, her eyes catch on orange, and she frowns.  _ That’s weird, it’s barely even noon… _

Rolling out of bed, Suzy presses her cheek against the glass and looks up.  _ Oh, the sun isn’t going down, it’s just a giant fish. That makes more sense. _

_...It really, really shouldn’t. _

The giant sky fish moves on ponderously, slowly clearing from the sky and moving on to where Suzy can’t see. What it leaves behind, however, is a world the same as she’d always seen but… colorful. Apparitions of all shapes and sizes, some trailing colorful smoke, others simply existing sans vapor.

“I guess calling them apparitions isn’t so appropriate any more, huh?” Suzy breathes. A pair of binoculars find their way into one of her hands, the other occupied with sketching out all the things she sees through her window, and before she knows it she’s filled another dozen pages.

For a moment, she sets the binoculars aside and flips back through her work. Her fingers still on the first page, and with a resolute expression she picks up an eraser and rubs out the  _ Apparitions _ written at the top.

_ Spirits, _ she writes in its place, and lifts her notebook up to the light. “...Yes, that’s much better,” she muses, before flipping forward again and getting back to work.

 

* * *

 

It takes Suzy nearly two hours to get bored of drawing the spirits that pass in front of her house. Not for lack of interest, though, it’s just that around that point is when new things to draw stop showing up.  _ I guess that’s just all the spirits that live around here, _ she muses.

All logical explanations aside, it still remains that by now all the spirits that pass within viewing distance are ones she’s seen before. Sure, she can occasionally take the opportunity to fix some details she got wrong on spirits she’s already drawn, but that’s not as interesting. Suzy’s aching for something new.

_ I wonder if I can convince my parents my ‘cold’ has worn off already, _ Suzy thinks, idly pressing her pencil eraser to her cheek.  _ Probably not, I went through all that trouble just to make them believe I got sick in the first place… _

“Just sneak out, kid.”

Suzy blinks as the world flickers into pastels, then turns to glare at the spirit standing behind her. “Shove off, Eraserhead. I’m busy.”

“Hey, I’m  _ trying _ to help you out,” Eraserhead says, not giving a visible reaction to Suzy’s new name for him. “I mean jeez, you were gonna come to that conclusion eventually. I just sped it up.”

Suzy glares at him. “And what makes you think that?”

“Uh, the fact that I can feel your thoughts and emotions?” Eraserhead crosses his arms. “You were already considering it. I just voiced the thought.”

“I wasn’t!”

“Yeah you were.”

Suzy huffs and crosses her arms, turning back to the window. “Well, whatever. You got anything else to say, or are you just here to bog down my day even more?”

“If you’re asking me to leave, you could stand to do it a little more politely.”

“Good  _ day, _ good sir, but I’m afraid I simply cannot speak with you any longer,” Suzy grits out, trying to resist the urge to snap her pencil in half.  _ All I’d have then would be a broken pencil. _ “Now will you  _ please _ get  _ out of my room?” _

Eraserhead scoffs, but nonetheless vanishes along with the pastel aesthetic. Suzy heaves a sigh of relief, tucking her pencil behind her ear before resuming staring out the window.

Then, with a noise of frustration, she throws her binoculars and notebook aside and marches over to her closet.  _ Curse that obnoxious, eraser-headed Eraserhead for knowing me too well already, _ she fumes, retrieving a clean outfit,  _ and curse me for doing it anyway. But I’m not sneaking out in my pajamas! _


	7. Chapter 7

_ Blue smoke, another one of those little cross-eyed octowhatevers,  _ Suzy thinks, wandering along the street with her notebook in hand. She’s taken to adding tally marks for every separate individual of the same species she sees, something she started doing after the seventh tiny green octopus.  _ Man, those things are everywhere. What’s up with that? _

She pauses to jot down the smoke color of the ninja bunny perched on a nearby lamppost— black, not quite the most common but far from rare— before turning down a side path cutting through a copse of trees.

She’s busy writing notes on what the bunny looked like, as by the time she looks back it’s already vanished, and so doesn’t notice the person standing in her way until she walks straight into them.

Suzy jumps back with a yelp, instinctively hiding her notebook behind her back before she’s even registered who it is she bumped into. That person turns out to be Lisa, standing in the shade of the trees with her arms folded neatly behind her back and a serene smile on her face. “Suzy. Having a pleasant afternoon, I see? Enjoying the sunny weather?”

“What are you doing here, Lisa?” Suzy asks, voice raising an octave as she tries to stop her heart from beating out of her chest. “Were you just standing around in these trees on the off chance that I might come passing through? ‘Cause that’s seriously creepy!”

“You’re one to talk, Miss ‘Stalked Isabel Guerra All The Way Home Just To Ask Her On A Date'.” Lisa retorts.

Suzy blushes furiously. “That! Was not a date! It was a formal interview, which happened to be conducted at an ice cream cafe!” She pauses. “And how the heck do you know about that, anyway?!”

“You just told me, is how,” Lisa says, smirking as Suzy freezes. “That being said, you weren’t exactly being subtle about your attention being on her. It was clear what you planned to do when you stayed at school staring pitifully at her long after most of the buses had long since left. The rest was mere extrapolation.”

Suzy takes a step back. “Well, what’re you gonna do with that? Gonna blackmail me even harder, make sure my hands are extra tied on the Max affair?”

Lisa’s expression goes back to serene, though her body language is anything but as she begins to circle around Suzy. “Oh no, not at all. That sort of knowledge about you is commonplace, after all. In fact, I hadn’t initially planned on bringing it up at all, but you gave me the perfect opportunity there and I just couldn’t resist.”

Suzy sighs, and as Lisa passes behind her she resumes walking. “Then what  _ did  _ you want? To remind me you have me in your clutches again?”

“Oh no, not at all,” Lisa says, trailing behind Suzy like a vulture. “I simply wanted to congratulate you on finding something even remotely truthful to write an article on without consulting me. How  _ did _ you manage to score an interview with someone in the Activity Club anyway? I had been under the impression they snubbed you in all affairs.”

“Yeah, well, so did I,” Suzy mutters, kicking a rock out of her path as she steps out of the shade and into one of the many semi-sheltered paths in the spaces between people’s yards. “But I guess Isabel totally forgot about the numerous times back in sixth grade that I totally failed to get any info from her, ‘cause when I actually took Collin’s advice and acted like a ‘normal person’? She just straight up agreed to an interview the next day!”

Lisa hums thoughtfully, still following a few paces back. “Fascinating. And how did you get the idea for the interview in the first place?”

Suzy opens her mouth to answer, then pauses and turns to give Lisa a suspicious glare. “Hey, are you just trying to mine me for information?”

Lisa’s smile widens. “Who, me? I would never, what makes you think that?”

Suzy scoffs, turning away again and picking up the pace. “Yeah, no, don’t try to play that game with me.”

Lisa frowns, speeding up her trot to keep up with Suzy. “Say, what were you actually doing out here on this fine day?” she asks, shifting tracks. “You were taking notes on something and looking around rather oddly.”

Suzy glances back at Lisa, frowning slightly before setting her gaze ahead again. “Birdwatching. I figured I might take up a new hobby, after you  _ tore away a significant part of my last one _ , thanks, Lisa.”

“Please, all I did was cut off a single source of information,” Lisa says with a chuckle. “Surely a journalist of your caliber could work around that?”

Suzy slows to a stop an an intersection, turning to face Lisa with a tired look in her eyes. “Look, Lisa, I’ve had a trying past few days. I couldn’t get to sleep last night, and because of that I’m really, super tired, and I don’t think I could deal with you prodding at me for much longer.”

Lisa raises an eyebrow. “So? Do you expect me to leave you alone all of a sudden, now knowing this? If anything, I’d want to prod you even more, just to know how you react.”

Suzy shakes her head, swinging her backpack off her shoulders and unzipping it to start digging around for something. “No, actually, I just thought I’d let you know my motivations before doing this. That’s what you’re after, right? Getting to know how I tick?”

Lisa just gives a puzzled frown as Suzy finds the thing she’s looking for and rezips her bag.

“Tell me,” Suzy asks as she holds the item up where Lisa can see it. “Do you know what this is?”

Lisa glances at the item and then back at Suzy, one eyebrow raised curiously. “It’s a can of sardines.”

“Right, and do you know why I’d be carrying sardines with me?” Suzy waves the can around at Lisa a few times. “Not even an inkling?”

Lisa frowns. “Have you suddenly gone even more mad than before? I didn’t think that was possible.”

Suzy bites back a laugh, lowering the sardines to hold them in both hands. “See, now I know you don’t live all that close to me, because if you did you’d get the significance of me carrying sardines, a type of fish, with me in an easily opened container in this particular neighborhood.”

Lisa remains silent, just watching as Suzy prepares to pull on the tab that opens the can. Just before she does, though, Suzy pauses to look at Lisa. “You know, opening cans like this makes a pretty distinctive sound.”

“You don’t say,” Lisa responds, a hint of annoyance creeping into her voice as she tries to figure out what Suzy’s up to.

Suzy demonstrates by pulling the tab open, casually tossing the now open lid away like so much garbage. “And fish has a pretty distinctive smell too. I’m sure you can smell it just fine too, even though you’re all the way over there.”

Lisa frowns, then after a moment nods slowly. “Is there a point to all this?” she asks.

“Be patient, I’m getting there.” Suzy shifts her weight, glancing behind Lisa. “See, fish has a really strong smell. But like, humans are pretty low down on the sensory skills, y’know? We can barely smell, we can hardly hear things more than a few meters away unless they’re loud, it goes on. So I couldn’t help but wonder, how far away would, say, a cat or dog have to be to know that I just opened a fresh can of sardines? And would they be interested?”

Lisa frowns deeper. “I don’t really see what you’re getting at, here.”

Suzy shrugs. “You will in a moment,” she says, the perks right back up and shoves the sardines into Lisa’s hands. “Anyway, you can keep these. Seeya!”

Before Lisa can react, Suzy’s already darted down one of the paths. Lisa begins to protest, but before she can take more than a step a small weight lands daintily upon her shoulders, knocking her off balance just enough to make her trip forward and land on her face. The sardines fly from her grip and bounce across the ground before coming to a rest right side up a few feet downhill.

The weight removes itself from Lisa’s back, and after a moment spent groaning in pain she peels her face from the dirt to look upon the cause of her downfall— A scruffy, grey-and-white housecat, purring loud enough for Lisa to hear as he eagerly devours the contents of that can of sardines.

Lisa groans and lets her head drop back to the ground. “You win this round, Suzy,” she mutters, unheard by anyone but the cat. “But  _ only _ this round.”

 

* * *

 

Suzy, meanwhile, is totally oblivious to any ominous threats made in earshot of a cat. She’s far too busy getting back to the reason she came out here in the first place: writing down notes on spirits. By now she’s noticed a trend— most spirits are distinctly non-human, not always visibly emitting smoke thus making it harder for her to sort them. On the other hand, there are those that look almost entirely like ordinary humans, but for the fact that their legs are replaced with that colored smoke and they frequently hover far above the ground and/or phase right through solid objects.

She’s decided to avoid attracting attention from the spirits, at least until she understands them a little better. Who knows which ones would react to her greetings with violence, or who might witness her speaking to thin air and think her crazy?

Not that she isn’t. It’s the principle of the thing. Besides, she’s still not completely sure this isn’t a particularly long-lasting and vivid hallucination. Better to play it safe, not draw the attention of weird magical creatures, and continue to ignore the voice in the back of her head questioning whether or not it was a good idea to ditch Lisa like that.

_ Wait, no, that’s not my voice. _ Suzy pauses midway through sketching a crow with rainbow feathers to look around, eyes narrowing as she realizes the crow hasn’t so much as twitched and everything has gone pastel again.

“Was that really the best way to end the conversation?” the voice asks again, now that he has Suzy’s attention, and she turns to shoot him a glare.

“Didn’t I already tell you to buzz off, Eraserhead?” Suzy asks, flipping her notebook shut and turning to face the spirit fully.

“Believe me, I  _ want  _ to,” Eraserhead says.

“Then why  _ don’t  _ you?”

“Because I can’t, obviously,” Eraserhead says, crossing his arms and annoyed eyebrows appearing over his walleyed… well, eyes. “Do you really think that if I had any choice in the matter, I’d consent to spending the next… what, three years? Five? Twenty? However many years, kicking around in the brain of a self-entitled, amoral brat? No  _ thanks, _ I’d rather spend that time embedded a hundred meters underground feeding on the few ghosts foolish enough to go that far down.”

Suzy watches the spirit silently, idly filing away information as she waits for him to finish. “So why can’t you leave?” she asks once she’s sure Eraserhead is done ranting.

Eraserhead sniffs haughtily. “Like you’d even bother with that. I’ve seen how you dote over that tool, keeping it away from your clubmates, calling it your trophy. It’s a trophy alright, but you’re not the one who  _ earned it _ beating me.”

Suzy glares. “This again? If you’re gonna keep stopping time and lecturing me, you could at least be a little more upfront about what it is you’re mad about.”

Eraserhead just scoffs. “As if you don’t already know. How have they not already approached you to pull you into their little conspiracy?”

Suzy growls. “I don’t know who ‘they' are! Nobody’s come to explain  _ anything _ to me, least of all you! You haven’t even told me your real name!”

Eraserhead just rests his hands on his hips and leans over Suzy. “Like you’d even care about it. You can just go on calling me that silly little nickname until you figure out what all this is about, then maybe I’ll let you in on that secret.”

With a quick flick to the nose, the world fades back to normal and Suzy is left blinking in the sunlight. After a moment, she growls under her breath and flips to the Eraserhead page to transcribe that conversation.  _ Still just as much of a huge jerk as last night, _ she thinks.

After a moment, she leans back from her notebook to consider what was said, thoughtfully pressing the end of her pencil against her cheek.  _ What was that Eraserhead said about a tool? And… me calling it a trophy. _

She pauses, and examines her pencil.  _ This is the only thing it could be referring to, _ she muses, feet automatically carrying her down the sidewalk and then sidetracking down a clearing to avoid a roaming band of lawn flamingos.

_ So, consider the facts. Eraserhead is somehow connected to the pencil I claimed from the Activity Club, which is why he can’t leave me alone.  _ She hops over a small stream as she goes, tucking her notebook back in her bag.  _ He said I’m not the one who beat him, which means someone had to, and that might be why he’s bound to the pencil. _

Cogs turn in Suzy’s mind, clicking ever closer to what might be a revelation.  _ Eraserhead was defeated, bound to a pencil owned by the Activity Club, the Activity Club is— _

And then she happens to glance up, and her train of thought stops short as she sees the  _ best spirit in the history of ever. _ It’s a cat, but it’s also like seven cats? A huge, clear, jelly-bean shaped mass with distinctive ears and limbs and a tail and a kitty smile with eyes closed all contentedly as it naps under a tree, and she can see all its organs but that’s even better because they’re a bunch of tiny cats inside it.

Suzy promptly forgets the plan to avoid any spirits as she lets out a high pitched squeal and rushes forward, stopping a few feet short of the cat as she remembers most cats are shy— she can’t afford to botch such a vital mission.

Slowly, she slinks forward. “Hey, kitty kitty,” she whispers, and the cat languidly slides one eye open. “Hi there kitty, are you a friendly cat? Or are you a friendly cats, plural, ‘cause you’re actually like seven?”

The cat blinks at Suzy, and after a moment pulls itself upright and stretches before leaning forward to sniff at Suzy’s outstretched hand. After a moment, it butts its head against her hand, and Suzy smiles.

It’s not furry at all, more comparable to a water balloon filled with jello than any cat Suzy’s ever touched. It’s also maybe twice Suzy’s size and eager to accept her pettings, so she quickly finds herself sat against the tree with a massive jelly cat curled on her lap, purring as she rubs gently behind its ear nubs.

“Who’s a good kitty?” she coos softly, moving one hand to scratch under its chin. “Who’s a good kitty? Of course you already know that, you’re a cat. Everyone knows cats are always best cat. You know that. Good kitty, good jelly kitty that’s also seven cats maybe, I’m gonna call you squishy...”

A wooden creak prompts Suzy to look up, and she meets the eyes of Isaac O’Connor, frozen midway through stepping out the front door of a slanted mansion—  _ how did I manage to miss that— _ and staring at Suzy like she’s grown another head.

In an instant, hundreds of possible words for her to say fly through her mind.  _ I can explain, pleasant weather we’re having, nice hair dweeb lord. _ After a moment, though, she settles on just two.

“Think fast!” she yells, and in a flurry of movement chucks the cat directly at Isaac and high-tails it in the opposite direction before she even knows it hit. A startled yelp tells her she did, though, and she can’t help but let a trickle of satisfaction bleed onto her face.

After a minute of running she finally skids to a stop to catch her breath. There’s pale pink smoke trailing behind her, dissipating quickly enough that she doubts it could be used to track her.  _ Not like Isaac could try anyway,  _ she thinks to herself, laughing quietly.  _ It’s not like he of all people would also— _

She freezes.  _ The cat hit him. I heard him react to— the cat— the weird immaterial cat that I automatically threw at him even though by all logic it should have gone right through him, and it hit him _ .

Suzy turns to stare back the way she came, a grin slipping onto her face as she remembers what she was thinking of just before the cat. _ Oh, yeah, the Activity Club is related to all this, isn’t it? _

 

* * *

 

“Young master? Are you alright?”

Isaac groans and shoves the still-purring cat off himself, pulling himself upright to a sitting position. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he mutters, rubbing at the back to his head where there might be a bruise forming. “Some girl just threw this cat at me.”

The Doorman steps closer, head tilted slightly. “Some girl? Another spectral, do you think?”

Isaac makes an uncertain noise as he stands back up and brushes off his clothes. “I dunno, she could’ve been a ghost. I didn’t get a good look at her legs, the cat was in the way.”

“I see.” The Doorman straightens up again, folding his arms behind his back. “That aside, are you sure you don’t need my assistance getting to the school faster? Assuming it is as much of an emergency as your friends claim.”

“It’s fine, there’s probably someone in the club room anyway. You might get seen.”

The Doorman nods, settling back as Isaac steps out of the still-open door again. “Very well then, I wish you an expedient journey up the hill.”

“Thanks, Doorman,” Isaac says back with a smile. “I’ll try to stay longer tomorrow!”

The Doorman nods, and Isaac shuts the door behind him. For a moment, all is silent, and then something shuffles in the rafters.

“The girl’s a new spectral,” Nin comments, letting her legs hang over the beam she’s perched on. “I saw her taking notes on spirits while I was out earlier, and I think I’d’ve noticed her around before if she was a spectral all along.”

Doorman hums thoughtfully. “...It may be worrisome that she stumbled upon this hiding place. Did she seem particularly dangerous?”

Nin shrugs, a second bunny leaned against the support taking over the conversation. “I dunno, she wasn’t doing much but taking notes when I first saw her. At least, that’s all she did to the  _ spirits _ ...”

The Doorman cranes his neck to look at Nin. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I figured I might watch her a little longer, and she got in a little wordsy scuffle with some other girl,” a third Nin replies, switching back to the first one after that sentence. “Not another spectral, I don’t think, just a normal capital-H Human. And she didn’t start a fight or anything, she just did something involving a can of sardines and a summoning chant or something— I didn’t really hear it— and called down a cat to smite the other girl.”

Somehow, the Doorman manages to give Nin a dubious look despite his head being literally a doorknob. Nin ignores him. “Come to think of it, she’s escaped two people now by knocking them over using cats. Maybe she’s possessed by some spirit with a really specific power?”

The Doorman clears his throat. “While that is a possibility, I somehow doubt it’s particularly relevant to anything. Did you happen to see the color of her spectral energy?”

One of the Nins blinks, the others continuing to stare thoughtfully in various directions. “Oh, it was like, this really light shade of pinky. Kinda frosty, I think. Why d’you ask?”

The Doorman relaxes slightly and turns to approach the stairs. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

Nin pouts, scampering down to follow Doorman. “C’mon, tell me! I’m curious!”

The Doorman sighs. “We already know at least one threat to my safety is lurking in Mayview in the body of a young spectral. Who’s to say there isn’t another?”

“Ahhh, gotcha,” all the Nins chorus as one, glancing amongst each other after a moment and shooting glares around until finally the center one speak. “So since this girl’s energy doesn’t match up, she’s not a threat?”

“One can never be too cautious,” Doorman says, “But yes, chances are, her getting a glimpse of the manse is no more disastrous than anyone else.”


	8. Chapter 8

_ Hey, that weird mansion I saw back there would make for a pretty cool article, _ Suzy muses, racing down the street in the direction she saw Isaac going.  _ I bet it’s haunted, wouldn’t that be cool? _

Isaac has some incredible endurance, she’s found. She’s been following him for almost fifteen minutes now, and she hasn’t seen him go any slower than a jog, going uphill even! And he hasn’t paused once.

Suzy, meanwhile, is struggling to keep up. At this point she’s mostly taking guesses at intersections with nothing but the occasional glimpse of his impressive ramp hair to confirm she’s still on the right track.

She has no idea what he’s up to, actually, but she has confirmed he can also see the spirits; he has on several occasions jumped clear over creatures in his path instead of passing through them. She can’t help but approve of his method of problem solving— he  _ could _ just walk around, but instead he chooses to jump something like two meters at the highest, looking like the main character of a game with a jump button as played by someone with far too much zest for life.

Honestly, if Suzy had that ability, she’d probably do that too.

Red plumber impressions aside, Suzy once again skids to a stop at a street corner to catch her breath. Isaac just escaped her grasp again, vanishing down a side path with far too many forks in it, (and that’s not even counting the literal animated cutlery,) and Suzy needs a moment to gain her bearings.

Looking around, she blinks when she catches sight of a familiar face leaning casually against a tree on one of the paths. “Hey, Dee!” she calls out after a moment, and Dimitri looks up in surprise.

“Suzy? What are you doing out here?” he asks, straightening up and jogging down to her.

“I’m investigating something,” she replies, voice still weak from lack of breath. “Did Isaac come by here? Orange ramp hair?”

Dimitri makes a face. “Yeah, I know who Isaac is,” he says, then motions at one of the paths. “You just missed him, he went that way.”

“Thanks, later,” Suzy says, starting up the path before Dimitri grabs her wrist.

“Wait, Suzy, this doesn’t seem like you.” Suzy gives Dimitri a skeptical look, and after a moment he clarifies, “The way you’re doing this. Normally you go about things a little more… stealthily, than running after your target in plain view of everyone.”

Suzy huffs and looks away. “Maybe I just felt like switching things up. You don’t know.”

Dimitri looks at her for a moment, expression blank, before sighing. “Let me be a little more blunt. Why are you chasing after Isaac like this?”

“...Because he was running, and I got suspicious?” Suzy reaches up to fidget with her pencil. Dimitri’s hand tightens around her wrist, and a bead of sweat rolls down her neck “Dee, is there something you’re not telling me? And can you please let me go?”

Dimitri blinks, glancing down like he’d forgotten he was holding her, and lets her go to shove his hands back in his pockets. “Well, there’s plenty of things. But I’m not too sure whether I should be telling you any of them. And I don’t know how to ask if you already know some of them without sounding insane.”

Suzy feels annoyance bubbling up in her chest, and she tugs her pencil out to twirl it around between her fingers. “You already sound insane just talking like that,” she grumbles. “Can’t I just have one conversation today that isn’t either people acting like I know more than I do, or  _ Lisa? _ ”

Dimitri’s eyes narrow. “So what  _ do _ you know?”

“I know tons of things,” she snipes back, crossing her arms. “But I don’t think I’m gonna go ahead with picking out things to say until I actually know just _ what the heck we’re talking about. _ ”

“But—” Dimitri begins, but he’s cut off by Suzy’s hand snapping out to press the eraser of her pencil against the corner of his mouth.

“No. You know what?” Suzy shuts her eyes petulantly and turns away, pencil still in place to shut him up. “I think I’m done talking in circles with people. I didn’t get much sleep last night, I have an investigation to do which  _ you _ interrupted, what kind of journalist are you? So no, I don’t really care what you have to say here. I’m just gonna go up that path now, and maybe Isaac’ll still be close enough for me to follow. And if he isn’t? I dunno, maybe I’ll go back to what I was doing before he showed up. Birdwatching. Surprisingly fun, actually. And if I run into you again, you’re going to talk straight with me, or you’re  _ not going to talk at all _ , got it?”

After a moment with no response, Suzy glances over at Dimitri in search why that is. A few things immediately stand out to her. For one, Dimitri’s eyes are wide, in a surprised expression she hasn’t seen much on him. Her pencil must have slipped at some point during her rant, leaving it on the opposite corner of Dimitri’s face.

Or, rather, the spot where that corner  _ used _ to be, along with the rest of Dimitri’s mouth. Where once there was a perfectly ordinary mouth, now sits a smooth expanse of skin, like someone decided they didn’t like Dimitri’s voice and just paved it over like a dirt road.

Suzy yelps and jumps back. “Gah! What the how the heck did— Did I do that?!” she yells, looking at her pencil. “ _ How _ did I do that?!”

“Mmm!” Dimitri adds, drawing Suzy’s attention back to him. He has his hands over his… lack-of-a-mouth, groping at it as if to confirm completely and totally for reals, there’s nothing there, what the hell. After a moment, he looks back up at Suzy with his eyebrows quirked oddly.

“Hey, what’s that look supposed to mean?” Suzy asks, crossing her arms uneasily. “I’m just as confused as you are! More, even.”

Dimitri glares at her for a moment, then sighs through his nose and lowers one hand to fish out his phone. Suzy blinks. “Why are you messing with your phone now? Are you calling Collin so he can be confused too?”

Dimitri just glances up, taps something out, and after one last tap Suzy’s phone vibrates in her pocket. She quickly fishes it out, and raises an eyebrow when she sees a text from Dimitri.

_ I’m texting you because I can't talk normally _

Suzy hums. “Oh, so now even when you don’t have a mouth, you still find a way to talk my ear off. If that’s all, I think I’ll just be on my way now.”

Dimitri doesn’t stop Suzy this time as she sidesteps him and starts jogging up the path. He just taps out another message which Suzy barely glances at—  _ You should be careful out there—  _ before she stuffs her phone back in her pocket.

The path quickly stops being flat, turning into more of a hiking trail than anything else. Suzy’s phone vibrates a few more times as she climbs, more things Dimitri has to say, but she ignores him.  _ I can read it later if it’s really that important _ , she decides.

 

* * *

 

Isaac finds the rest of the Activity Club long before he would have gotten to the school. It’s a good thing, too, as there’s only so much he can do to speed himself up with wind, and his legs are getting tired.

He finds Isabel first, chased up a tree by swarms of mice riding fluffy void ducklings. “Isaac, what the heck took you so long?!” she cries, swiping with her umbrella to topple a stack of mice approaching the branch she’s on. “And didn’t you already deal with these guys like a week ago? Why are they still aggressing us?!”

“That was just the gladiatorial mice!” Isaac calls back, lightning crackling around his arm before it shoots out to hit the ground, sending the mice scattering for cover. “These are military,” he explains, jogging over through the now cleared space under Isabel’s tree. “I wasn’t the one who negotiated with them, so don’t blame me if they went back on their deal.”

Isabel grumbles something under her breath, then swings down to land next to Isaac. “I still don’t get why they keep attacking. And they never die! It’s not even like the ghost train, those things at least I could beat by exploiting respawning mechanics, but these things just vanish in a puff of air and the hordes never shrink!”

Isaac gives her an odd look. “Yes, I… know all that already. Why did you feel the need to explain it again?”

“I dunno, it just felt right.” Isabel shrugs, then glares and pulls out her umbrella as the mice return from the woodworks. “Come on, again? I like fighting and all, but I’ve gotta at least get a chance to  _ breathe _ once in a while.”

Isaac sighs. “Don’t worry, I can deal with this.”

He takes a deep breath, lifts up one leg, and then  _ slams _ it into the ground. A shockwave of air blows from the point of impact, sending the mice flying into the air. Isaac quickly grabs Isabel’s hand and drags her away as the mice lay stunned on the ground. “C’mon, It’s not gonna take them long to recover. We have to regroup with the others.”

“What? But—”

“Isabel, which one of us was just complaining about having to fight these things over and over?”

Isabel grumbles, twisting her hand out of Isaac’s grip, but nonetheless keeps running by his side. “Fine. So, what’s the plan?”

“Right now, we have to regroup with Max and Ed,” Isaac says. “You’d know better than I would were they are.”

Isabel hums. “I got separated from them at the school gates,” she says, “But I think I have an idea of which way they WOAH!”

Isabel skids to a stop inches before she would have crashed into someone else racing out of the park entrance they’re passing. Said person also tries to skid to a stop, but a stray branch trips them up and sends them face-first into the pavement.

Isabel blinks. “Suzy?”

“Owww...” Suzy groans, pulling herself from the sidewalk. “What the heck, hecking branches on the ground, I oughta…” She blinks, and looks up. “Oh, Isabel! Fancy meeting you here!”

“What are you doing on the ground, Suzy?” Isabel asks, and Suzy’s face shifts oddly. Something pale seems to flicker around her shoulders, but it vanishes before Isabel can focus on it.

“O-oh, you know, just hangin’ around,” Suzy stutters.

“Really? ‘Cause it seemed like you were doing a lot of running around a moment ago.”

Suzy’s face goes flat. “It’s a special advanced kind of hanging out. Which involves running around a bunch. Why were  _ you _ running?”

“Uh...”

Isabel goes blank, but Isaac quickly saves her the need to make up an excuse by stepping forward. “Aren’t you the girl who threw a cat at me earlier?” he asks.

Suzy goes stiff as she realizes he’s there too, and then in a flurry of movement she leaps to her feet and turns to leave. “Oh would you look at the time! I’d better start running around aimlessly again good luck with those m— whatever you’re running from!”

Isabel blinks. “What? What just— what?”

Isaac stares after Suzy in a sort of calculating way. “I thought so,” he mutters, and Isabel looks at him.

“What did you think?” she asks.

Isaac looks right back at her, looking a little excited. “I think that girl’s a new—”

Before he can finish his sentence, though, a wave of mice crashes over the two of them, toppling them to the ground and allowing them to be swept into the park.

Isaac sends another shockwave out to blow them away from the two of them, before rushing over to Isabel and helping her back up. “Come on, let’s not get distracted this time.”

Isabel follows Isaac’s lead back to the road, stumbling a little before steadying out and hurrying to catch up with Isaac. “Right, so if Ed was right he and Max should be headed for the—”

 

* * *

 

“—Bakery? Seriously?”

“Hey, it makes sense, right?” Ed gestures vaguely with his brush. “Mice breed like, super fast, and they like to hang out where food is. What kinda food do mice eat the most? Breadcrumbs. And where do you find bread? A bakery!”

With that, Ed gestures dramatically at the building in front of them again, Max managing to duck his outspread arms this time. “Okay, I’m not gonna question it,” Max mutters, taking a few steps away. “But why exactly would we need to be here?”

Ed hums. “Well, me an’ Izzy were discussing how the mice never seem to die, and we came to the conclusion they’re probably either being created by some other spirit somewhere, or they have some kinda spawn point where they always go back to when they die. Kinda like a video game, y’know?”

Max raises an eyebrow. “Uh-huh. And why do you think it’s  _ here _ , in  _ this _ bakery of all places?”

Ed drops his arms and gives Max a disappointed look. “Dude, I just explained this. Try to pay attention this time, mice like to eat—”

“No, I got that,” Max cuts him off. “I was asking why you’re certain the mice are coming from this bakery, and not some other bakery. Surely there can’t be only one bakery in all of Mayview, can there?”

Ed crosses his arms. “You’d be surprised.”

Max blinks. “Seriously? There’s  _ only _ this one?”

Ed nods, then pauses. “Actually, there might be another one on the other hill, I dunno. But this is the only one on  _ this _ hill, that I know of, and thus the closest one and so the most logical one to check first.”

Max stares at him for a moment, then sighs. “Okay, fine, you’re the veteran here. How are we gonna go about this?”

Ed grins. “Oh, that’s easy. We just go in and search for the source of the mice!”

“...And how are we gonna do that?” Max asks. Ed gets that are-you-stupid look on his face again, and Max quickly adds “ _ Without _ looking ridiculous?”

Ed looks crushed. “You suck all the fun out of everything, you know that?”

Max crosses his arms. “Well  _ sorry _ for having an iota of concern for my reputation. It’s already damaged enough, I don’t need getting kicked out of a bakery on my list of sins too.”

Ed sighs, then turns to the door. “Fine, we can do it the boring way. Watch and learn, Max-boy!”

Ed pushes the glass door open, and immediately Max is hit with the warm scent of baking bread, mixed with a hint of sugar from sweet pastries and perhaps a hint of cooked meat?

Unfazed by the bounty of delicious scents, Ed continues into the store with Max trailing after him in a daze. “I’ve come here once or twice before,” Ed says, unheeding of Max’s food-induced trance. “The food’s great, and the owner’s pretty cool so I’m pretty sure we can hang around for a little while.”

After a moment, Max snaps out of his reverie and looks at Ed. “So, where do we start?” he asks in a hushed tone.

Ed turns and silently jabs a thumb at the shelves, giving Max a moment to get his meaning before turning to wander in the direction of the counter. Ed makes a show of looking over the assortment of pastries, and Max stares after him for a moment before turning to the shelves.

Tall wooden shelves lined with numerous loaves of bread fill most of the store, and Max finds himself kind of amazed at all the types of bread surrounding him as he ambles casually down the aisle. Occasionally, he pauses to examine the price tags. It’s half a front to peer through the gaps in the shelves into the other aisle, and half curiosity at just what this twisty thing or that blob is actually called.

He’s pretty sure one of those things was actually a spirit in disguise. It’s hard to tell, but judging by the fur, and the twitching, he’s pretty sure he’s right.

There’s plenty of spirits here, as with pretty much everywhere in Mayview, and Max isn’t sure how to tell if any one of them is what he’s supposed to look for. There’s a colorful lizard clinging to the ceiling, a line of opalescent marbles rolling in an intricate pattern along the bottom shelf, the aforementioned twitching ball of fur, a swirling green vortex at the end of the shelf surrounded by a shimmering force field and showing a glimpse of Isaac and Isabel…

Max blinks.  _ Wait, what was that last one? _

His head snaps back to the vortex, and sure enough there’s the two other members of the club— running through the streets like there’s hell nipping at their heels, which isn’t too far off base if Max has anything to say on the matter.

The edge of the vortex ripples as Isaac twists to send a gust of wind at the mice, and in a puff of smoke several military mice appear within the force field and leap right back into the fray. Max watches as a few more mice trip into being on this side, picking themselves up and launching themselves into the vortex again, before finally he snaps out of it and turns to look for Ed.

The veteran spectral in question is still at the counter, looking like he could be doing any number of things; inquiring about cinnamon rolls, chatting up the cashier, telling the cashier all about his day. It’s hard to tell with Ed, especially from a distance.

Another thing hard to do from a distance is get someone’s attention, something Max struggles to do without drawing the attention of  _ other _ things, like magic portals, or mundane cashiers. He starts with waving his hands around, angled such that the cashier doesn’t have a clear line of sight on him, before upgrading to waving around with maximum spectral energy output, and then he stops, sighs, and tries a different tactic.

He shifts his weight back, one leg braced behind him as he lifts one hand pointing like a gun, the other braced on it as if it’s an actual pistol and not just his hand. He focuses, energy gathering around his fingertip, and then with a mental  _ bang _ his hand shoots back and up as if from recoil.

The spectral shot whizzes across the store and past Ed’s head, dissipating harmlessly when it hits the window. Max takes a moment to celebrate at having successfully fired it off, and then Ed turns to give him a questioning stare and Max starts gesturing firmly in the direction of the vortex.

Ed says something to the cashier, then kicks off from the counter and strolls over to Max. “Did you find something?” Ed asks.

“What do you think?” Max snarks, arms crossed and waiting for Ed to notice the glowing vortex he’s standing next to.

Ed gives him a confused look, then happens to glance down and takes a half-step back. “Well, would ya look at that. You actually found something.”

Max raises an eyebrow. “You didn’t think I would?”

Ed shrugs and waves him off. “Eh, I’d say you had maybe fifty-fifty odds of finding something. Good thing you did, though, ‘cause Isaac and Izzy look like they’re having a heck of a time down there.”

Max sighs. “So, what now? Do we destroy this or something?”

Ed hums. “I dunno if it’ll be that easy, it looks like it has a force field...”

After a moment of thought, Ed pulls out his brush and draws it into a blade. He stabs downward, and the field pops like a bubble. A moment later, the vortex ripples and shrinks away into nothing, leaving a lone mouse that spawned at just the wrong time stranded at Max’s feet.

“Huh.” The mouse attempts to stab at Max’s shoes, and he casually kicks it away. “That was anti-climatic.”

“Yeah, that happens sometimes.” Ed scratches at his nose, then perks up. “Hey, wanna get croissants?”

Max shrugs and follows Ed back to the front of the store with an uneasy smile. The twitching ball of fur has sprouted legs, he notes, and is beating a hasty retreat through the door and across the street.

On the way out, snack halfway to his mouth, Max pauses. “Hey, d’you think that was the only portal the mice could’ve been using? ‘Cause it didn’t seem like the rate at which they were getting hit matched the rate they were spawning in over here.”

Ed shrugs, absorbing the remainder of his croissant into his mouth and swallowing before he replies. “I dunno, seems plausible. We should regroup with Isaac and Izzy first though. More heads think better.”


	9. Chapter 9

Isabel and Isaac find themselves beating a hasty retreat from the clutches of the military mice, swearing up a storm as much as two middle-schoolers can manage. This is the seventh time they've gone through this ordeal, not counting the numerous other times they got overpowered by the _gladiatorial_ mice they fought last week, (which if you counted would add up to somewhere well into the double digits,) and they're getting quite frustrated at this point.

Slowly but surely, they make their way towards the bakery, unaware of the shadow they’ve acquired in the form of Suzy. Suzy happens to be unaware of how many times the Activity Club was taken down by the Gladiatorial Mice, as if she was, she would surely find some way to twist it into a reason to hate the Activity Club.

Or maybe she’d just laugh at them, who knows.

As it is, though, she’s already taking great pleasure from watching them get (in her eyes) their just desserts from the military mice. She’s even taking notes. On the mice, that is. She’s counting this as part of her ‘birdwatching' and taking numerous notes on the mice. Especially how they take down Isabel. Purely so she can avoid having it happen to herself!

Oh, who is she kidding, she’s doing it so she can adapt those tactics for her own use. For who is she but a scoundrel who takes advantage of every opportunity she gets to get one over on her rival?

Shakespeare-esque soliloquies aside, Suzy is presently perched in a tree some distance away, watching Isabel through her trusty binoculars. She laughs as Isabel trips over pavement and only barely escapes a hard face-to-ground impact by the intervention of her partner.

It’s a wonderful way to get her mind off of the Dimitri Incident. She doesn’t have her pencil tucked behind her ear, for once, instead keeping it safely hidden in a pocket of her bag all on its own, where she resolves to leave it until the day’s adventures are well and truly over.

She just hopes it doesn’t erase a hole in the fabric and escape into the wild. Though that would make for a pretty cool article…

Idle thoughts on the school newspaper aside, the half of the Activity Club Suzy is presently stalking escapes around a corner, signalling her to sigh in disappointment and begin the process of unpeeling herself from the bark. It’s a remarkably tall tree, tall enough for her to see as far as she wants in any direction not blocked by buildings, which is a blessing once you’ve actually reached the top. On the way up and down, though…

Well, when Suzy accidentally takes the fast route, she’s lucky to come out of it with only a few scrapes and bruises.

Suzy picks herself up from the grass with a groan, stretching and feeling her joints crack in protest of the time spent stationary in an awkward position, and then after brushing a few leaves from her hair and shouldering her backpack she takes off after the fleeing Activity Club members.

When she catches him with them, she’s curious to find the horde of mice looking a little smaller. Isabel and Isaac seem to be faring a little better against them as well, considering Suzy had expected to find them on the ground again when she caught up— that they’re fully upright and only struggling slighting is testament to the change in the horde.

_I wonder how crazy they look to all the people who can’t see the whole picture?_ Suzy wonders. After a moment, she pulls out her phone. _How could I swing this story? How about… Mayview Middle School’s Mysterious Activity Club Unveiled: Secretly Mimes?_

She thinks it over for a moment, then shakes her head. _No, too long. I’ll figure something else out._

They’re rapidly approaching the shopping district, Suzy notes, and she’s surprised to see Ed and Max running to meet them. Ed draws up a barrier around them— _is that a magic paintbrush? cool_ — and Suzy guesses they’re huddling there, though she can’t see anything past the combination of black ink and roiling mice.

After a moment, the barrier dispels and all four of the Activity Club members take off in different directions. The horde splits up as well, each getting a quarter of the mice, and for a moment Suzy envies its ability to divide itself into pieces.

Ed ends up as the one running back the way Isaac and Isabel came, sending him racing right past Suzy’s hiding place, and on a snap decision she turns to race after him— after the mice have passed as well, of course. She doesn’t want to get caught up in their nonsense any more than she already is.

The mice are faster than Ed, and she’s sure she’s going to see him get taken down by them like the many times it happened to Isaac and Isabel. Moments before the mice at his heels can overtake him, though, something in his stance shifts and then—

A brief blur and a wind is all Ed leaves in his wake, along with dazed mice and an awed Suzy taking notes. _He’s done that before, hasn’t he? Him and Isabel. But then I couldn’t see everything, did something about his eyes change? It’s hard to tell with those glasses._

The mice pick themselves up and give chase soon after, skittering and swarming down the sidewalk, and Suzy darts across the road to see if she can get back into sight of Ed without getting close enough to attract the mice’s attention. She turns onto the street he’s pretty sure he went to, looks around, and frowns as she sees no sign of him. _He can’t have gone that far, could he? That’d attract attention._

She slows to walking pace as she goes down the street, looking around in confusion. Her confusion only increases as she realizes the street’s a dead end. _Where is he hiding?_

Suzy comes to a stop halfway down the street and slowly rotates, trying to pick out where a particularly short seventh grader would be able to hide. She grimaces as quite a few places occur to her as viable, then freezes as a faint chittering noise begins to grow behind her.

She turns, dread already growing in the pit of her stomach, and all the blood drains out of her face as she sees the mice back in action and racing right for her.

If anyone were to ask her after the fact, Suzy would admit to having let out a startled squeak at the sight. If anyone were to ask _Ed_ , however, he would testify to having heard a noise somewhere between a tea kettle, a train, and a Wilhelm scream moments before a blonde girl sped down the sidewalk below his hiding spot in a tree.

The mice don’t care much for the fact that the blond spectral they’re chasing after now bears little to no resemblance to the one they were chasing before. There isn’t much to their mind when in a group like this, mob mentality and all, so when one of them decides to rush after this spectral the others just fall into step behind it.

For a second, Ed just stares in shock at the sight of someone he doesn’t recognize— wait, maybe he does? Yeah, he might have seen that girl talking with Max at some point. The sight of someone he vaguely recognizes, but he didn’t think was a spectral, being chased by spirit mice. It’s only a second though, and then his better nature kicks in, overpowering his self-preservation instinct, and with a groan he kicks off from the branch and leaps into the fray.

Suzy curses everything she can think of when she reaches the end of the street and hits the tall chain-link fence separating it from the vaguely forested area behind. She turns to face her impending doom, bracing herself, determined to face this fate with her eyes open.

And then, a war cry echoes out across the street. “Valhalla!” Ed cries, brush painted into a scythe, landing in front of Suzy to cleave swaths of mice and clear the area for the moment.

Once he’s reasonable sure they’ll have a moment alone, Ed turns to give Suzy a sweeping bow. “You’re quite welcome, my lady, no need to thank me.”

Suzy stares in shock for a moment, trying to reconcile her opinion of the Activity Club with what just happened there, before quickly shaking her head and clicking her mouth shut. “You actually— you saved—”

“Ah ah, like I said, there’s no need to thank me. I’m to save such a lovely maiden as yourself. And you probably wouldn’t be able to defend yourself very well given you seem pretty new to all this.” Ed straightens back up and glances off with an exasperated look. “Honestly though, is this some new trend? Me getting to meet the newbies first?” he mutters.

Suzy shakes her head again. “No, that wasn’t— I wasn’t gonna thank you, I just— why did _you_ save me?”

Ed blinks, or at least Suzy feels like that pause was appropriate for a blink to happen in it. It’s hard to tell through the glasses. “Whaddya mean? I was there, wasn’t I? Why wouldn’t I save you if I can?”

Suzy pauses. _Oh, that’s right. Most people do have that thing where they automatically care what happens to others. What was it called? Com… comp… companionship? Company? Agh, this is is gonna bother me for ages, I just know it._

While Suzy mentally struggles with words, looking to the outside world like she just froze staring at Ed like he grew another head, the mice slowly reform and swarm around the two of them. Ed notices their resurgence moments before they strike, and with a yell he grabs Suzy and drags her backwards out of the way.

He deals with them in much the same way as before, leaving puffs of smoke around the pavement as he drags Suzy down the street by the wrist. “Look, I dunno if you noticed but now isn’t really the best time for explanations,” Ed says. “D’you think you can lay low somewhere until I can come get you and explain things properly?”

Suzy glares at him. “Heck no! There’s a huge scoop here, I can feel it, there’s no way I’m gonna just lay down and ignore it.”

Ed gets an exasperated look on his face. “Alright, guess we’re doing it the hard way then.”

Suzy has barely a moment to wonder what Ed means by the hard way before he whips out his brush, reverts it to normal, and shoves her to hit a fence. The wind rushes from Suzy’s lungs, and before she has time to recover Ed draws a rough cage around her and steps back.

“Okay, you sit tight there for a little while, I’ll be right back!” Ed gives a jaunty wave, then takes off running again as the mice swarm over and around the cage to chase after him.

Suzy doesn’t even bother calling for him to wait. She just glares, planning a million ways to get her revenge, and starts searching the cage for faults she can take advantage of.

 

* * *

 

“So, what was that about getting the scoop?”

Suzy growls, arms crossed as she leans against the fence and glares at the blotchy bars of her cage. “Leave me alone, Eraserhead.”

“Didn’t I already explain this to you? Your pencil—”

“I didn’t say _go away,_ I said _leave me ALONE!_ ” Suzy shifts her gaze up to where Eraserhead is perched atop her cage, goofy face looking frustratingly smug for an arrangement of lines on an eraser. “You clearly have control over whether or not I have to look at you, so why don’t you take advantage of that ability to _not make me have to look at you_?”

Eraserhead sniffs haughtily and looks away. “Well geez, I was _going_ to give you some vague hints on how to get out of this pickle you’re in, but if you’re going to be like that I’ll just let you figure it out on your own.”

Suzy snorts. “Yeah, good riddance. I don’t want to hear it anyway.”

For a long moment, everything is silent. Everything remains flat, pastel, and distinctly lacking in anything more than a few feet away. Suzy looks up and narrows her eyes. “Aren’t you gonna go?”

“I’m waiting for you to change your mind.”

Suzy glares. “And why the heck d’you think I’m gonna do that? I just said I don’t want your help.”

Eraserhead glares right back. “Well, how else are you going to get out of here? You’ve exhausted all the other possibilities and you’re clearly not going to think of this one without some prompting.”

Suzy stares at him for a moment, confused, then shifts back to glaring. “If you’re talking about the pencil, I already considered it.”

Eraserhead raises an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? So why haven’t you used it?”

Suzy huffs and looks away. “I dunno how it works. I don’t wanna erase myself by accident or something.”

Eraserhead sighs like an overworked teacher having to explain something to the third student in a row. “You have to _want_ to erase something, kid. And there’s no way my powers are great enough to erase an entire person.”

Suzy glances back and raises an eyebrow. “‘Your' powers?”

“Yes, ‘my' powers.” Eraserhead crosses his arms. “What, did you think it was a coincidence that your pencil could have erasing powers _and_ you had a spirit with an eraser for a head? Be honest here.”

“No!” Suzy denies, then wilts after a moment under Eraserhead’s skeptical gaze. “Maybe a little. B-but it doesn’t matter! I’m still not gonna use the pencil.”

Eraserhead groans in exasperation. “Why not?! There’s clearly no other way out of this!”

“Because,” Suzy explains slowly, “you suggested it to me, and I’m feeling spiteful.”

Eraserhead groans louder. “Seriously? What was all that about getting the scoop? Would you really give that up out of spite?”

Suzy blinks, then flushes and looks away in lieu of an answer. Eraserhead sighs. “Look. I’m the only person who’d ever know. Not even a person, if you ask some spectrals. Is it really worth getting one up on me, versus getting to follow that other kid to whatever?”

For a moment, the words hang in the air, and then Suzy sighs. “Fine,” she says, reaching for her backpack. “Fine, I’ll use the stupid pencil. Now will you _please_ leave me alone?”

Smug smile on his face, Eraserhead vanishes as the world floods back to normal, and Suzy pulls out her pencil. _Better figure out how to work this thing consistently,_ she muses, and then gets to work.

 

* * *

 

The Activity Club regroups in the park, exhausted and frustrated as they circle around the final remaining vortex. They look like they’ve been through hell, hair mussed and full of leaves, skin covered in scrapes and bruises. In the moment of silent they all share while they circle the vortex, Isaac idly pats out a flame sputtering in his hair.

“So...” Max glances around awkwardly. “This _is_ the last one, right? We’re not gonna have to deal with another swarm of mice when we break this?”

Isabel grimaces. “I hope not,” she mutters, combing leaves out of her hair. “We should be prepared for anything, though. On three?”

There’s a chorus of nods, and everyone shifts into their battle stances. “One,” Isabel begins.

Max tightens his grip on his bat.

“Two.”

Sparks dance around Isaac’s fingers, a swirling wind picking up around his feet.

“Three!” With that word, Isabel snaps out a thin whip of spectral energy that snaps the vortex, and then there’s a deafening boom and when the dust clears, a massive rat dressed like a king looms above them.

For a moment, all is silent, and then the Rat King’s tail slams against the ground. The shockwave knocks Max and Isaac to the ground, leaving them vulnerable to the Rat King as it sweeps its tail around in a circle.

The two of them are sent flying, while Isabel and Ed manage to jump over the tail. Isabel spares a moment to watch their trajectory— Isaac recovers quickly and uses his powers to soften their landing, so she turns back to the Rat King and lets her energy flare around her arm.

“Ed!” she calls, jumping back to dodge a swipe from the Rat King’s claws. “Flank this thing!”

“Aye aye, Izzy!” Ed calls back, dancing around the Rat King’s feet to dart behind it. The tail slams against the ground again, but Ed manages to keep his balance.

Isabel fires off a spec-shot, growling in annoyance as it splashes harmlessly off the Rat King’s cloak. Meanwhile, in the back, Ed forms his brush into an axe and cuts at the base of the rat’s tail. The Rat King bellows in pain and turns around in search of the source, but Ed clings to the tail and tries to swing at it again after it’s relatively stationary.

Isaac makes his return to the fray with a boom, lightning striking the Rat King’s nose and drawing its attention back to him. “Hey, pick on someone your own size, you overgrown garden rat!” Isaac yells.

“I dunno if it really has the same impact when that’s exactly what the spirit is,” Mac mutters from behind him, wincing as his arm throbs in protest of the action.

The Rat King swipes at Isaac, who casually uses wind to push it off course, making it hit the ground. “Oh, like you could do any better with so little time,” Isaac grumbles back.

“Oh, I bet I could,” Max replies with a smirk. He darts out from behind the cover of Isaac, bat in hand. “Hey, Rat King! Your kid’s illegitimate!”

The Rat King pauses, then turns to Max with fury burning in its beady little eyes. Max freezes. “Well, I guess that proves it’s sapient.”

Isaac speeds in front of him, deflecting the Rat King’s lunge upwards to send it sailing over them. “Idiot! You still can’t fight properly with your arm, what are you doing drawing that thing’s attention to yourself?!”

“My _pride_ was at stake, ramp-hair! And it’s out of the sling now anyway,” Max says, waving his cast-clad arm around in demonstration. “I can even kinda hold things in it!”

Isabel speeds past to block the Rat King’s next assault with a barrier of spectral energy. “Save the concerned spats for after the fight!” she yells. “Focus on actually beating the enemy!”

Speaking of the enemy, the Rat King starts to slink around the trio of spectrals— Ed clinging to the trim of its cloak— and towards the center of the park. Isabel turns to keep it in her sights, and her eyes widen when she sees it stand up on its hind legs and gather violet spectral energy around its forepaws.

“Guys, it’s doing something!” Isabel yells, and a moment later a vortex like the ones they faced before forms in the air above the park and military mice start swarming from what seems like every nook and cranny. The Rat King seems to smirk, and then it vanishes, leaving Ed to crash to the ground.

Isabel growls. “Isaac! See if you can reach that vortex to take it down, the rest of us can hold back the mice.”

“On it!” Isaac barks out, leaping across the park, and then with a sigh Isabel holds out her umbrella and faces the horde coming for her and Max.

“Come get some.”

 

* * *

 

Somewhere else in the park, Violet looks up from her water bottle and frowns. “There’s that cracking noise again,” she mutters.

“It’s probably just people setting off fireworks,” Lisa says, counting out Starchman Stars. “You know how people get.”

“In the middle of the day?” Violet asks. Lisa just nods, and Violet sighs. “Alright, doesn’t really matter anyway. Not my problem...”

 

* * *

 

After several repeats of the Activity Club whittling down at the Rat King alternating with it summoning a vortex and vanishing as long as its minions are around, they finally manage to bring it down.

The one to land the killing blow is Ed, with a strike to its head that sends its crown flying off into the distance. As the Rat King fades into white, Ed drops neatly to the ground and strikes a triumphant pose.

“Did we beat it?” Max asks disbelievingly from the ground, somewhat dazed from the Rat King’s last attack. “Is it finally dead?”

The Rat King swirls and vanishes into a stray branch on the ground, which Isabel picks up and tests the heft of. “Well, I wouldn’t say dead, exactly,” she says, letting one end of the branch clunk against the ground as she holds it like a staff. “But yeah, we beat it. Makes for a pretty cool staff.”

Max breaths a sigh of relief and drops fully to the ground to lie there with his eyes shut. “Oh thank god. I can finally take a nap.”

Isaac steps gingerly over a few remaining mice, looking lost and disoriented at the loss of their master. “You okay down there, Max?”

Max gives a thumbs up. “I’m cool, just gimme a minute to recover from all that.”

Isaac shrugs and shoves his hands in his pockets, lifting his head to scan the area. “Alright. So… what do we do now?”

Ed trots over to Isabel’s side as she leans the branch against her shoulder. “Well, we’re gonna have to archive this tool,” she says, idly tapping her toes on the ground, “but other than that I guess we’re free to do whatever!”

Ed perks up. “Maybe we could go visit a cafe or something! Get drinks to celebrate our victory!”

“Yeah, I know a pretty good one down by the lake—” Isabel starts, before she’s cut off by a new voice.

“Oh, do you mean the one I interviewed you at?” Suzy asks, wandering into view with her phone held up to record. “‘Cause I gotta say, they make a mean milkshake.”

Max groans and covers his face with his hands. “Oh god, please tell me that’s not who I think it is.”

Suzy beams, lowering her phone. “Sorry to disappoint, Maxwell. Say, what do you think I should call the article on this little incident? I was thinking something like… Activity Club Unveiled: Secretly Amateur Mimes?”

Isabel blinks. “Suzy? What are you doing here?”

Suzy huffs in amusement. “What does it _look_ like? I’m recording you dorks jumping around in the park like a bunch of madmen. Or, I _was_ , and then you stopped. And now I’m recording you talking to me.”

Max sits up. “We should probably leave. Like, right now, immediately. Preferably as fast as we can, as far away from Suzy as possible.”

Ed looks at him curiously. “Why?”

“Um? Because she’s the number one threat to this club’s sole remaining shred of secrecy?” Max gives Ed a long-suffering look. “Seriously, you guys are terrible at this secret-keeping thing.”

Ed pouts. “Hey, Max, that’s mean. I mean, probably right, but mean.”

“Anyway!” Suzy interrupts, waving her pencil around in the air. “Do any of you wanna say a few words on that little performance you had there” ‘Cause I gotta say, those were some impressive acrobatics. I’d almost think there were strings if it weren’t for the fact that there’s nothing to hang them from outside.”

Isaac narrows his eyes. “Yeah, I’m gonna have to call bollocks on you not knowing what went on there.”

Suzy blinks, an innocent smile on her face. “Excuse me? What do you mean?”

“Don’t tell me you forgot!” Isaac gestures angrily, sparks dancing along his arms as spectral energy flares around his shoulders. “You _threw a cat at me!_ ”

“Oh yeah, I think you mentioned that,” Isabel muses. “But what does that have to do with anything?”

Isaac crosses his arms and glances over at Isabel. “It was a _spirit_ cat. I wasn’t sure if she was a new spectral or a ghost at first, ‘cause I couldn’t tell if she had legs, but when we ran into her later then I knew. I would’ve mentioned earlier, but then, well...”

Isabel and Ed gasp, Ed in a significantly more sarcastic manner, alongside the low, keening wail emitted by Max. Suzy, meanwhile, eagerly pulls out her notebook and starts scribbling things down with her phone balanced on her head. “Oh, so they’re actually called spirits? I just went with that ‘cause it seemed like a decent placeholder, but man, I actually guessed right. That’s pretty neat!”

Isaac blinks. “What, you’re not denying it anymore?”

Suzy grins. “Well, you pretty clearly established I had to know about these things, right? So there’s no point lying about it anymore!” She twists around, waving gaily after her as she starts strutting towards the park entrance. “Well, I think I’ve gotten all the information I want out of you. Ciao!”

With a strangled noise, Isabel finally snaps out of her shock. “Suzy?! You’re a spectral?!”

Suzy shoots a bright grin back at Isabel, picking a stray mouse out of her hair after it drops down from a tree. “What,” she asks, swinging the mouse around by the tail and letting it soar off into the distance, “you only just figured that out?”

With that, Suzy vanishes around the corner. The Activity Club stares at the spot she just was, silent apart from Max making noises that might be muffled sobs— it’s hard to tell, given how muffled they are by him having curled into the fetal position.

After a long moment, Ed speaks up. “So… victory drinks?”

 

* * *

 

Suzy sighs as she drops into bed at long last. The sun’s only barely begun its descent down through the sky, but she already feels like going to sleep and staying that way for the rest of the week.

Restraining the urge to just take a nap, she rolls onto her back and pulls out her phone to flip through apps. She blinks as she notices the message notification lit up. _Oh yeah, Dimitri. I almost forgot about him._

Idly, she opens the messages to read through the new ones.

_If I know you at all, you’re going to ignore these at first and read them later,_ Dimitri starts. _So if I’m wrong, let me know within a minute._

The timestamps say there’s two minutes between that and the second text. _Okay, I’m going to work under the assumption you’re only reading these way after I sent them initially. So let’s just hope you don’t get eaten or something before then._

_There’s a lot to say about this, but I’ll try to keep it short. So: Congratulations, you somehow became privy to the secret world of spirits and ghosts that very few can interact with. There’s a number of ways this could have happened, but I’m guessing what kicked you over the edge was your pencil, or ‘tool’._

_The Activity Club’s purpose is dealing with aggressive spirits and teaching young spectrals how to not get eaten. The actual effectiveness of the second part is debatable. I can explain in more detail in person._

_You’re probably mad at me for keeping this from you when I knew all along, and I’m not going to make any other excuses than ‘I was told to’. Feel free to explode at me in person._

_Pretty much everything I have left to say boils down to ‘talk to me in person’, so I think that’s my signal to wrap this up._

_So, in short; Congrats, you finally know what the Activity Club is about. Now you have to pick out a new life’s mission. Birdwatching, maybe? Or you could become an author, the articles you write are already halfway to being proper short stories already, just make up some new names and you’ll be set._

Suzy clicks her phone off with a glare. _The nerve! I write plenty good articles, I just… embellish them a little. Okay, maybe a lot. But they always start with a little truth in them!_

Sighing, she deposits her phone by her pillow and screws up her eyes. _Maybe I should take a nap after all. Then I could actually sort through all this stuff…_

With that thought, Suzy drifts off into blissful oblivion, witnessed only by the tiny peacock doll perched upon her desk.


	10. Chapter 10

An hour after excusing herself early from the round of victory drinks shared by the Activity Club, Isabel steps out of the library with a burgeoning headache and the suspicious glare of the librarians weighing heavy on her back. She wouldn’t have had to spend so much time studying in there if she was allowed to check books out, but she’s been banned from removing anything from the library building after the fifteenth mutilated textbook. Honestly, Isabel’s amazed she’s allowed in there at all.

It’s a long walk down the hill, though thankfully Isabel remembered her bike on the way here so she doesn’t have to actually  _ walk _ — she just has to coast, and hope nothing unexpectedly comes out from behind a corner in front of her.

While she’s paused at an intersection, though, she’s surprised to find someone walking up beside her and stopping to stare off into the distance. “Oh, Dimitri!” she greets, shifting her feet around uncomfortably. “What, uh, do you need something?”

Dimitri hums, arms crossed as he looks down at the ground. “...No, I don’t. There’s a new spectral, though.”

Isabel blinks. “You mean Suzy? We ran into her earlier today, just after we wrapped up today’s nonsense.”

Dimitri nods, looking a little relieved. “Good. She’s not gonna want to join the Activity Club, by the way, so don’t even ask. And I can cover explaining things to her, so...”

Isabel nods slowly, looking up as the lights for the direction she’s not going turn yellow. “You’re acting pretty responsible there, Danger. Did something change?”

Dimitri just hums. “...Not really. She’s just more likely to believe me than you.”

“Gotcha.” The opposing light turns green, and Isabel kicks off the ground. “Well, she’s your friend, so I’ll trust your judgement. Seeya!”

Dimitri waves casually as she goes off down the road, watching her for a moment before turning to walk down the street. He pulls out his phone and pulls up the messages he sent Suzy, wondering— not particularly anxiously— when she’d bother responding.

_ Speak of the devil, _ he muses, blinking when barely a second after he checks, Suzy finally texts back.

_ ur off the hook fn mister bc im tired but lemme tell you ur getting SUCH a talking to tomorrow morning _

_ ur not allowed to keep secrets about the aclub from ur boss _

_ Glad to see you’re finally done ignoring me. _

_ i WASNT ignoring you for the past hour or so ill have you know i was Napping _

_ Instead of responding sooner. For all I could have known, you got eaten by a whale. How can you be sure I wasn’t fretting all evening waiting for you to text back, wondering how to explain it to your parents if you go missing? _

_ hahahahahaha nice joke _

_ you? fretting? ur chiller than a vat of liquid nitrogen in antarctica _

_ I’m glad to hear you think I’m cool. _

_ i said chill not cool _

_ Details. So, I can expect to spend tomorrow morning before school explaining all this to you? _

_ u bet mister _

_ I’ll see you there. _

With that, Dimitri clicks his phone screen off and stuffs it in his pocket.  _ I’d better get home too, _ he muses, and picks up the pace.

 

* * *

 

The next morning Suzy is significantly more well-rested, and ready to face the day. Birds are singing, flowers are blooming, and the Activity Club is no longer a mystery to her.

Speaking of which, she’s still trying to pick out a good title for this month’s article ‘exposing' the club in question. It’s an exercise Dimitri suggested a while ago, in which she practices making articles pretending to expose the Activity Club for various outlandish claims. Last month it was zombie cultists, based on an incident involving smashed potatoes and a clam, and this month’s shaping up to them being mimes— ironic, considering this time she knows exactly what they’re really up to.

The articles don’t actually get published, mind you. Suzy just prints them out and pins them on her wall, always careful to leave a space in the center for the eventual genuine article. Which, now that she thinks about it, is she actually going to write it? Now that she knows it herself, the idea of telling the whole school just feels… odd. Like this is now her secret as well, and she doesn’t take well to people learning her secrets.

All that aside, she’s been waiting at the school gates for what feels like hours now, entertaining herself with thoughts of article names until Dimitri arrives.  _ Definitely something that starts with Activity Club Exposed. Maybe… Activity Club Exposed: Freak Accident Turns Mayview’s Most Mysterious Club Into Silent Superheroes? No, that’s way too long. And getting a little too far from the mime theme. _

Finally, Dimitri appears at the crest of the hill, pausing as he sees Suzy waiting for him. “Did you get up early and walk just to get here before me?” he asks once he’s close enough for Suzy to hear.

“Well,  _ yeah, _ ” Suzy replies, turning to lead the way inside. “A good journalist doesn’t spare a single moment she could be getting information during. Speaking of which, you’d better start talking, buster!”

Dimitri sighs and casually tilts his head to dodge an errant ghost. “Can it at least wait until we’re somewhere private? These things aren’t exactly common knowledge, you know.”

“Fine,” Suzy grumbles, crossing her arms petulantly. “But the second that door closes behind us, you start talking!”

“Yeah, yeah, I gotcha.” Dimitri leads the way to the Journalism Club room, holding the door open for Suzy and watching her flounce past before shutting the door behind him.

Suzy drops into the chair, doing a full rotation in it before stopping herself with a foot on the desk and pinning Dimitri with a firm start. “Start talking.”

Dimitri tucks his hands in his pockets. “Where should I start?” he asks.

Suzy screws up her face, tapping the drawing end of her pencil against her temple, before flicking it at him. “The basics. What are spirits?”

“In short, the combined manifestation of various cultural concepts, ideas, and emotions.” Dimitri idly unshoulders his backpack and hangs it on the doorknob, stretching his arms quickly before continuing. “They effectively exist on an alternate plane of reality overlaid over this one, which a few rare people can gain the ability to interact with.”

Suzy hums. “You mentioned something about ghosts.”

“Yes, ghosts are real. They could be considered a… specific subset of spirit, lower on the pecking order than anything else. Or, thinking about it another way, spirits are like ghosts that were never ‘alive' to begin with.”

“What does that make us, then?” Suzy asks, twirling her pencil around her finger. “Able to interact with both the living and the dead… halfas? Zombies?”

Dimitri looks amused. “The technical term is ‘Spectral', though I understand the confusion. What else?”

Suzy brandishes her pencil at Dimitri. “This eraser-headed spirit keeps stopping time to berate me, and says he’s connected to this magic pencil I stole from the Activity Club.”

Dimitri continues to look amused. “Yes, that’s normal. I’m guessing the spirit was defeated by the Activity Club at some point and possessed that pencil, at which point they left it there until you came along and took it.”

“Whaddya mean, possessed?”

 

* * *

 

“...technically not inaccurate, but the proper term is still—”

“Nope! Too late, I’m totally gonna call whatsisface Isaac a tool next time I see slash talk to him, can’t stop me.”

“...Sure, I’m sure he’s never heard that one before.”

Collin blinks as he pushes the door to the Journalism Club open. “Did I miss something?” he asks, looking upon the sight of Suzy energetically noting something down while Dimitri turns to look at him with a quietly amused expression.

“‘Morning, Collin,” Dimitri greets, glancing back at Suzy. “We’re discussing something that happened yesterday.”

“Oh! Collin!” Suzy perks up. “Perfect timing! Do you know what time Isaac O’Connor typically gets to school?"

Collin gives her a suspicious look. “...No,” he finally answers, “I don’t know, because I don’t make a habit of stalking people.”

Suzy tsks. “Dang, that’s disappointing. Well, got any other info on anything?”

Collin shakes his head. “No, just checking in before class.”

Suzy blinks and looks at the clock. “Oh man, it’s already almost time for class?” Hurriedly, she grabs her stuff and gets up. “I’d better go, catch you later Dee!”

Collin starts to leave ahead of her, and is almost out of earshot when he hears Dimitri say “Wait, there’s one last thing.”

Curious, Collin pauses to listen in. “You can’t leave Mayview,” Dimitri says. “There’s a barrier around it that spirits and spectrals can’t go through, and the only way out is out of commission for the next few months at least.”

For a moment, all is silent, and then Suzy replies, “Is that all?”

“Yeah.” A tense feeling Collin hadn’t even noticed fades away. “You can go now.”

A moment later, Suzy prances out into the hallway, looking for all the world like she hasn’t just been ominously told she can’t leave town. “What was that about?” Collin asks.

Suzy plays innocent. “What was what about?” she asks back.

“That ominous stuff Dimitri just said,” Collin says. “About how you can’t leave town or whatever.”

“Collin...” Suzy stops, and with a feeling of dread Collin turns to face her. “Were you eavesdropping?”

“Uh...” A bead of sweat trickles down the back of Collin’s neck.

“I’m so proud of you!” Suzy exclaims. “So, so proud, you’re actually picking up my techniques! Just you wait, we’ll be making a proper journalist out of you yet!”

Suzy then proceeds to hug Collin enthusiastically, and he regrets even bringing it up.

 

* * *

 

Suzy looks just the same as ever, Isabel notes. That is to say, completely unremarkable, like the rest of her classmates.

That, though, is rather remarkable. After all, since Suzy’s a spectral now, shouldn’t there be some kind of palpable different? A slight shift in her behaviour, glancing around nervously whenever spirits come around, even just the occasional leakage of spectral energy— but there’s nothing. Isabel isn’t sure whether to be impressed by Suzy’s acting skills or worried at how much compartmentalization must be involved in immediately learning to ignore spectral life.

That being said, Isabel isn’t sure whether or not to approach Suzy at some point. On one hand, she still has what Dimitri said burning in her mind—  _ Don’t bother asking her to join, she’ll just say no. But does that apply to if I’m just… talking to her? Not… asking her to join the club or anything, the Journalism Club is probably like her life or something. I couldn’t take her away from that. But she’s another new spectral! Think about it, three new spectrals within what, a month? Little more? How often does something that happen? _

Mr. Spender calls on Max to answer something, and Isabel tunes in just long enough to seem like she was paying attention all along before she lets her thoughts slip again.  _ And yeah, there’s Max and Johnny too, but they’re not really the greatest conversationalists, y’know? And they’ve both been spectrals for something like a month now. Not quite new anymore! Suzy, though, I haven’t gotten to know! Even if we’re not gonna be in the same club, us spectrals gotta stick together, yeah? Gotta make sure the newbie is up to speed. _

Idly, she chews on the cap of her pen.  _ When’s a good time to talk to her, though… maybe if she’s not too busy during lunch? I can just go up to her like, ‘hey, you mind if i sit here? cool thanks, so how are you holding up?’ A flawless plan if ever I’ve had one. All I have to do now is wait two periods. _

Suzy, meanwhile, is thinking of less serious business. That being planning out the next issue of the school newspaper.  _ How about… a sob tale about a radioactive spider from a long-dead alien planet, who came to Earth as an egg. And then it bit someone, turning them into SuperSpiderman. No, it’s totally a true story! I read it on the internet. _

_ Okay, maybe I’m reaching a bit. That goes on the back.  _ Suzy sighs, momentarily confusing Isabel who doesn’t have any way of knowing her inner thoughts.  _ Actually, what did… whoever suggest? Something about noveling. Maybe I should actually try to write something fictional for a change. A little short story to put in this week’s paper! Or like, wait, what’s the word for super-short stories? I should get Collin to look it up… _

The bell rings eventually, prompting everyone to get up and leave for their next classes. Suzy remains deep in thought as she packs her stuff, not really looking where she’s going, and then she yelps and jumps when she bumps into someone.

She blushes as she realizes who she ran into. “O-oh! Isabel, hi.”

Isabel blinks, then smiles lightly and turns to face Suzy. “Hey, Suzy. You holding out okay? You seemed a little distracted during class.”

Suzy shifts on her feet. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she says, looking away uncomfortably. “I was just… thinking about things. Did you want something?”

Isabel thinks for a moment, then shakes her head. “Nah, just saying hi. Though, I am a little curious about what being in the Journalism Club is like. Let’s talk as we go?”

“R-right!” Suzy falls into step next to Isabel, mind racing internally as Isabel starts asking questions like she’s,  _ ugh, _ genuinely curious about Suzy’s interests.  _ There’s some ulterior motive, I just know it!  _ Suzy thinks, not letting her thoughts show on her face as Isabel gets caught in a metaphor.  _ Maybe she wants to figure out our methods, so we can’t spy on the Activity Club. Or… or she’s trying to get a feel for me as a person, so she can manipulate me! _

_ Or she just wants to make friends with you, _ a mental representation of Collin suggests, and Suzy mentally jabs him in the face with her pencil.

_ You shut up, mental-Collin! I’m allowed to be paranoid. This is my arch-enemy we’re talking about here. _ Suzy reaches her next class, English class, and takes the opportunity to politely say goodbye to Isabel and dart over to her seat and pull out her notebook in preparation for some hardcore note-taking.

 

* * *

 

Lunch comes, and Suzy spends much of it idly gnawing on her fork and staring across the cafeteria at Isabel.  _ She’s up to something, I just know it. I oughta go over there and slap that grin off her face, who the heck does she think she is? Laughing and joking around with her friends like she’s not up to something… _

Suzy can just see how it’s go. She’d get up, slamming the table and making cutlery clatter in such a way to make Collin jump as she’d march across the cafeteria. Isabel would immediately sense Suzy’s gaze on her, and look up just before Suzy slams her hands on the table again— this time right in front of Isabel.

“Spill it!” Suzy’d say, leaning uncomfortably close to Isabel’s face, making her lean back uncomfortably from Suzy’s overbearing presence. “You can’t fool me, Guerra, what’s your game?”

Isabel would blink, face the perfect picture of confusion. “I’m sorry?” she’d say, voice tinged with confusion, but Suzy would see right through it. “What’s this about?”

“Don’t play dumb!” Suzy would snap. “I’m onto you, there’s no way there wasn’t anything to you trying to talk to me earlier.  _ What are you playing at? _ ”

Her cover blown, Isabel’s confused look would drop, revealing a look of annoyed indifference. “Fine, you caught me. I’ve been onto you from the beginning, you know. I was trying to get in your good graces, spy on you like how you spied on us. Turnabout is fair play, right?”

Suzy would smirk. “You admit it, then!”

“Of course, I should have figured you’d cotton onto your own tactics so easily.” Isabel would slide out of her chair, walking around the table all dramatic-like to face Suzy on an equal level. “But I still can’t let a potential leak go unpatched.”

Isabel would pull out her umbrella—  _ from where, though? Doesn’t matter— _ and get into a battle stance. Suzy would take a step back, shifting into a stance of her own as she smirks. “So what, you’re going to fight me? Here, in the middle of all the school?”

Isabel would smirk right back. “Of course. What, you think I can’t eliminate a threat without being noticed? Please, how do you think the club stayed secret all these years.”

Or, wait, something occurs to Suzy.  _ What if that’s not it? What if she’s… _

Instead of her face dropping into cold indifference, Isabel would glance away nervously, her cheeks stained a shade or two darker. “The truth is, I… ever since I first saw you in class, I’ve...”

Suzy would blink, and then her face would shift into an amused smirk. “...Loved me? Loved everything about me, my hair, the way I walk, the way I talk,  _ everything? _ ”

Isabel would look up, surprised. “H-how did you—”

“Please,” Suzy would say, tossing her hair lightly, “it’s written on your face, clear as day. It couldn’t be more obvious if someone took a sharpie to it.”

Isabel would stare at her a moment, then look down, face red. “So, um, now that you know...”

“...Would I go on a date with you?” Suzy would pretend to think it over, humming and hawing and tapping her lips with her fingers. “Maybe… maybe I would, just maybe, if you’d do me one little favour.”

Isabel would perk up. “A-anything!”

Suzy would smirk, and lean in close. “I want you to—”

“Did Isabel do something in particular to make you glare at her like that,” Collin asks, jolting Suzy from her reverie, “or are you just doing it on principle?”

Suzy blinks rapidly blinks to clear her head of the fantasy, then glares at Collin and smushes her hand over her mouth. “None of your business,” she mutters, cheeks tinged pink.

Collin raises an eyebrow. “What, did you realize something? C’mon, I don’t wanna miss it if you finally figured it out.”

Suzy gives Collin a befuddled look. “What are you  _ talking _ about, Collin? Do you know something I don’t about Isabel.”

Collin crosses his arms and leans back. “Uh-uh, nope, I’m not just gonna tell you. You gotta figure it out on your own.”

Suzy grumbles under her breath, grabbing her apple and stuffing it in her mouth to take a crunching bite.  _ Like I care what Collin has to say anyway, _ she tells herself, swallowing the bite and wincing as a poorly-chewed chunk has difficulty going down.  _ It’s probably something totally obvious I already know about, I’m not gonna give him the satisfaction of getting to tell me. _

Collin continues to smirk at her through the rest of lunch, denying it whenever Suzy comments, and after a bit Suzy resolves to ignore it and strike up a conversation with Dimitri. “Look, I completely agree with you with regards to competitive play,” he says, waving his fork around placatingly, “I’m just saying in  _ casual _ play, is Flareon really all that bad? The computer isn’t as good at picking moves than a human.”

Suzy makes a grumbling noise in the back of her throat. “I get what you’re saying,” she admits. “But I was specifically arguing about competitive play. And besides, wouldn’t it be better even in casual play if it had a less limited move pool?”

“I’ll give you that, it doesn’t nearly as many moves as it should,” Dimitri secedes, and for a moment Suzy looks smug at having won the argument. “But,” Dimitri adds, flicking his fork for emphasis, “it does have one thing going for it. Collin?”

Collin takes his cue to pipe up. “It’s really cuddly and warm and would make a really nice lap pillow.”

Suzy twitches. “Seriously? You’re judging it by its  _ cuddliness? _ ”

Collin nods sagely, and Suzy nearly snaps a spoon in half. “It’s not even— you can’t even hug it! It’s a  _ virtual creature, _ in a  _ video game, _ which you can’t actually hug.”

“Now that’s just mean,” Collin says, pouting. “You’re gonna hurt the Flareon’s feelings at this rate.”

Suzy sighs exasperatedly. “Look,” she says, pinching the bridge of her nose, “I can’t argue with you about how cute Flareon is, as it’s both subjective and I completely agree with you. But this is an argument over whether it’s any good in battle. Not whether it’s any good as a pet.”

“At least it’s better than Luvdisc,” Dimitri says with a smirk.

“Oh, don’t get me  _ started _ on Luvdisc,” Suzy says, and for a moment all is silent.

Collin coughs. “Do you…  _ want _ to get started on Luvdisc?”

The remainder of lunch is spent with Suzy emphatically harping on about the total uselessness of Luvdisc in competitive play, and also all other play because it’s terrible and it should feel terrible. Collin nearly manages to derail it into discussing how good it’d be as a pet several times, but Suzy cottons onto his plans the third time around and duct tapes his mouth shut before carrying on.

He manages to get it off just in time for the first bell, signalling Dimitri to cut Suzy’s rant off and wander off to class. He ducks an inexplicably backflipping Max on the way—  _ Why? I mean, that was a really cool backflip, but… why? _ — and and steps over a lazy spirit that everyone else just phases through on their way out.

Suzy lingers a little longer, silently considering the spirit for a moment before resolving to note it down— no reason to stop recording this stuff just because she knows the terminology and who else can see it. With that, she returns to her locker and grabs her notebook, jotting down notes on spirits on her way to class.

It’s math class, which once again gives Suzy the opportunity to stare intently at the back of Isabel’s head. She only realizes her position a moment after she’s already sat right behind Isabel, and she considers switching before she decides it not worth the potential embarrassment.

Her notes on this class are half actual math and half terrible doodles of Isabel, Suzy realizes, as she flips to the page they’re supposed to be kept on. She makes a face, and after a moment of thought flips to a new page.  _ It’d be too much hassle to erase all that. _

For a moment her mind stalls, pencil hovering over the paper as she stares blankly at the front of the class, Ms. Baxter’s words passing effortlessly through her, and then Suzy blinks.  _ Hey, speaking of erasing things, I don’t really know how the eraser really works, do I? I don’t know what it can and can’t erase, and I don’t know how far it can go with erasing. Dimitri’s mouth came back, do all things I erase regenerate? _

Idly, she rubs the eraser on the corner of her notebook. Nothing happens, and she tries rubbing a little harder, focusing on the removal of this paper from existence, before giving up.  _ Okay, so ordinary paper is out of the question. What else? _

After a moment’s thought, she arranges her notebook upright to hide what she’s doing and wraps a lock of hair around her finger. Running the eraser along it like she’s snipping it off, she notes to her surprise that the entirety of the lock just vanishes below the point she erases, disappearing from her finger like it didn’t exist in the first place.  _ Interesting. Let’s see how long that takes to reappear. _

Idly tapping the pencil against her cheek— drawing end, she doesn’t trust that eraser even if it only works when she’s focusing on it— she tries to think up more experiments she can do in the middle of class.  _ Maybe I could… confirm that it works on all spectrals? It seems to have a range of effect a little larger than what it’s actually touching, so… _

That thought in mind, Suzy flattens her notebook back down and stretches across her desk, trying to reach Isabel’s back with minimal attention-drawing. A remarkably difficult task, considering the urge to grunt in frustration at the exertion!

The pencil held barely between the tips of her fingers, Suzy swipes the eraser an inch or two from Isabel’s hair. A triumphant grin lights up on her face as a section of Isabel’s hair near the bottom vanishes.  _ Test confirmed! It works from like, what, three inches away? Two inches? I don’t have to be quite touching it, is the thing. Sweet. _

That test complete, Suzy strains to think up another test before giving up and actually paying attention in class. Baxter’s saying something about long division, and with a small sigh Suzy finally gets around to taking notes.

It only takes a moment for her attention to stray again.  _ Long division. Math. Math math math math math, I hate math, oh please why isn’t math class over already I’m so bored. Why can’t something exciting happen to end math class early— _

 

* * *

 

On the up side, Suzy gets her wish. On the down side, the school gymnasium catches on fire for the second time this month, resulting in the fire alarm being pulled and the whole school being evacuated.

But hey, no more math class! Suzy counts it as a win.

Besides, it’s a beautiful day outside, if you ignore the pillar of smoke and the wailing sirens. Honestly, they weren’t even done renovating it after the last fire, all the electricity was cut off, there’s no gas to leak there, how did the fire start?

All these thoughts run through Suzy’s mind as she admires the view of the land downhill. She’s already taken plenty pictures of the smoke, more than enough to write an article on it, so she’s taking a short break on her own.

Though not for long, it appears, as barely two minutes after she positions herself by the railing Isabel wanders over and plants her butt on the railing with an irritated sigh.

Suzy blinks, glances over her a few times to assess body language—  _ arms crossed, fingers tapping, shoulders tensed, lips pursed, eyebrow twitching, she’s annoyed— _ before turning to face her. “Something wrong?” Suzy asks.

Isabel glances up at Suzy, then looks up and grimaces at the pillar of smoke. “You mean aside from the obvious?” she snipes back, then after a moment sighs again and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Sorry, I’m just a little annoyed, because I’m pretty sure I know exactly who did this and I don’t see him or any of his gang around. So I’m a little worried for them.”

Suzy blinks. “Who do you think did it?”

Isabel thinks for a moment, apparently mulling over whether or not to tell her, then rakes a hand through her hair. “The last newest spectral, before you,” she explains, frowning slightly as her fingers leave her hair unexpectedly soon. Suzy’s face remains carefully blank. “He’s got the ability to throw fire around, and he caused the first fire too when he got his powers, and I  _ really _ wouldn’t put this past him.”

Suzy pouts. “What, am I not gonna get a name?”

Isabel laughs lightly, shaking her head. “Sorry, I heard about your history with sensitive information from Max. I get the feeling if I actually told you you’d just put it in the newspaper, and while he’s kinda a loudmouth he doesn’t deserve the punishment he’d get for burning half the school down twice.”

“Please, like I’d just let it go like that,” Suzy laughs, waving Isabel off. “I’d hold onto the information until I have something I need him to do, and then I’d threaten to release the information! Blackmail is a much more efficient use of my time, you know?”

Isabel laughs again, then sobers up. “But seriously, if I find out you’re responsible for blackmailing anyone I know, I’ll probably punch you in the face.” Isabel punches the air in demonstration, sliding back into a relaxed posture as quick as she went out of it. “Like, at least once. Maybe more, you never know.”

Suzy laughs nervously, leaning away nervously. “N-noted. I’ll be careful then.”

Isabel nods in satisfaction, leaning back on the railing to continue watching the proceedings. Suzy falls silent, considering her options, and she’s about to point out she’s gonna find out who it is sooner or later just based on the information Isabel gave her, when Isabel perks up and starts staring intently at something.

Suzy follows her gaze, curious, and finds some firemen leading a few somewhat singed-looking students out of the building, a short one wearing a hoodie coughing into their fist as the redhead next to them tries to get the fireman in charge of him to let go of his shoulder.

She glances between Isabel and the group of students, and quickly puts two and two together.  _ If I know anything about narrative conventions, I’m guessing the firebender is the redhead. And boy, that is a Red redhead. There’s no way that’s his natural hair, is it? I better ask whenever I get to talk with him. To get to know him as a fellow spectral! Not anything else. Not gonna get punched in the face, no-siree, Collin was plenty example of what happens when she does it on accident, I’m not gonna check out how badass she is when she’s actually trying to punch people. _

_ Or at least, I’m not gonna make myself the test subject _ .

Suzy’s thoughts stray, wandering in all directions as Isabel continues to watch the gang of singed classmates like a hawk. Suzy doesn’t notice when they’re finally released to mingle among classmates, only realising it when the redhead marches over to Isabel and crosses his arms in imitation of Isabel’s pose, right down to the disapproving stare.

“Whaddya want, Red?” he asks, snapping Suzy from her thoughts. “You’ve been staring at me since me ‘n the gang got out of there, you lookin’ for a brawl or somethin’?”

Isabel glances over Redhead’s singed and smokey clothes, looking back at his face after a moment. “You could’ve gotten hurt, you know,” she says in lieu of an answer.

Redhead scoffs. “Please, you think I could just throw around this stuff if I got hurt by it? I ain't stupid, y’know.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Isabel mutters, before continuing in a louder tone, “Your  _ friends _ could have gotten hurt. And besides, you don’t need to feel the heat to get hurt from smoke inhalation. Also. Property damage.”

Redhead grumbles something under his breath. Isabel’s face goes flat. “Being bored in class isn’t an excuse to set the school on fire, Johnny. At least the first time you had the excuse of have just gotten your powers, but it’s been a month!”

Suzy blinks.  _ Redhead is firebender, name is Johnny, check. Isabel is terrible at keeping secrets, also check. Good to know _ .

Johnny shifts his weight back, crossing his arms defensively and looking at the ground. “Wasn’t even in class,” he mutters, “we were skipping. Then Stephen wanted to see, ‘cause he wasn’t there for the first time...”

“...so you committed casual arson. Again.” Isabel sighs. “Well,  _ please _ don’t do this again. If you have to set things on fire, do it down by the lake, where there’s plenty of water to make things not on fire.”

Johnny begins to mutter something resembling a promise to be a little less reckless, but he’s cut off by Suzy suddenly perking up and pounding her hand in realization. “Compassion! That’s what that word was!” she announces, then blinks and flushes red as she realizes both Isabel and Johnny are staring at her. “I— uh, sorry, I just remembered a word that I’d forgotten the name of. You can carry on.”

Johnny glances between Isabel and Suzy, then shifts into a more casual stance. “Hey, who’s this? She anyone, uh...”

“She’s a new spectral,” Isabel answers without skipping a beat. “Sorry to relieve you of your title so soon, but she’s Mayview’s  _ new _ new newest spectral.”

Suzy frowns and starts mentally counting up ‘new's, and meanwhile Johnny grunts. “We gonna get an introduction, or nah?”

Isabel perks up. “Oh, of course. Suzy, this is Johnny Jhonny. Johnny, this is Suzy, uh...”

Suzy blinks, and quickly says “Just Suzy.” She sticks out her hand in offering of a handshake, and Johnny accepts it with mild bemusement. Suzy grins with a few more teeth than are probably necessary. “It’s pleasure to meet you.”

“Yeah, uh, likewise.” Johnny reclaims his hand, stuffing it in the protective cover of his jacket pocket before turning to leave. “I better run now, RJ’s gonna get lonely or somethin’. Nice talkin’ to ya!”

Johnny jogs off, and Suzy watches him thoughtfully. “He’s quite a character,” she comments, wrapping a lock of hair around her finger— the lock she erased earlier is still gone, she notices. “Had a pretty high body temperature, based on that handshake, is he a medium? Dimitri said they can getting pretty weird, and it’d make sense if he has fire powers ”

Isabel blinks, then nods slowly. “How’s you figure out what powers he has just from a warm handshake?” she asks.

Suzy scoffs. “I  _ didn’t, _ ” she says. “You practically told it to me, considering you were talking about it like two feet away. I only figured he was a  _ medium _ from the handshake. And from the fact that he’s apparently immune to fire, which wouldn’t make sense if the tool were separate from him...”

Isabel sighs. “Well, dang. I guess you found out it’s him anyway, huh?”

“S’not like you were hiding it very well.” Suzy crosses her arms, then leans away when she sees Isabel giving her a dark look. “Hey, don’t worry, I’m not gonna blackmail him about it. I don’t want a black eye, it’d ruin my looks.”

Isabel laughs. “Yeah, you’d better not. I won’t hesitate if it comes to that, just so you know.”

Suzy gives a strained smile. “I didn’t think you would.”

They fall back into silence, the smoke finally relenting under the barrage of water from the firemen, and after a bit, Isabel sighs and kicks off from the railing. “Well, I better go. It was nice talking to you!”

“L-likewise!” Suzy stutters out, waving goodbye, then dropping her hand to her face and slumping back against the railing.

“Great going there, genius,” she mutters into her arm. “You didn’t even  _ try _ to protest getting another limiting factor on what you can do. What next, am I gonna pledge my allegiance to the football club? Sell my left foot to the  _ theater kids? _ Geez...”

With a sigh, Suzy drags her hand down her face and glares up at the sky. After a moment, she sighs, pulls herself upright again, and ambles back to the crowd.  _ Guess I should make sure Collin didn’t get caught in the flames or whatever. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the first time the gym got burned down is supposed to be when johnny first got his powers :V (for people reading this in the future after this is inevitably made noncanon: IT'S ALREADY PLENTY AU ISN'T IT??)
> 
> and sorry johnny fans, he will not be playing a major role in the rest of the fic! i just felt like there wasn't enough happening while i wrote it and naturally the right thing to do was burn down the school. it just felt right


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy birthday to me, this chapter has no further relation to birthdays aside from being posted on mine, happy birthday to meeeee

School’s canceled for the rest of the day, as can be expected when like half the building gets scorched. There’s remarkably little structural damage, just a whole lot of blackened halls and maybe a few broken windows. The room the fire started in— the second floor boys’ restroom— got the worst of it.

Not that Suzy would know. It’s not like she snuck into the school after everyone left to take photos or anything. And it’s definitely not like she evaded notice by people looking through the building for possible people trapped, or remaining dregs of the fire, by performing a Puckett-esque parkour move into the rafters using a convenient dragon as a springboard.

And then she definitely didn’t take bird’s eye view pictures from there before shimmying over to a window and climbing back out.

This all is her explanation she gives Collin as she shows off the photos she got— through totally acceptable means, of course.

Collin is skeptical, of course. “Normally I’d choose to believe that was an actual explanation of the situation, operating under reverse psychology, and move on with my life,” he mutters, mashing buttons on his 3DS as he goes, “but then you mentioned a dragon. So now I can’t decide whether you just made up that part, or the entire thing.”

Suzy scoffs, eyes flickering to Dimitri— fast asleep with his head in his arms,  _ traitor _ — before smirking at Collin. “What’s so hard to believe? There was a dragon, I jumped on it, it was more springy than I expected and launched me all the way to the ceiling.”

“Um, maybe it’s the fact that  _ dragons aren’t real? _ ” Collin suggests, eyes not leaving the screen, and then his eye twitches and he holds it up in frustration. “Come on, how the heck did Cody manage to move during the cutscene?! I keep mashing jump and it’s not working!”

“There’s probably like a one-frame thing he’s hitting,” Suzy comments, leaning over to look at the screen, before looking back at Collin. “And dragons  _ are too _ real. How else could I have gotten up there?”

“I can think up a number of ways,” Collin mutters, clicking the game off with a sigh and shutting it in his pocket. “But what I really wanna know is why are you so determined to pretend this is real? You make up plenty of fantasy stories for the articles, but you don’t try to convince me  _ they’re  _ real. Why this one?”

Suzy glowers, leaning back and crossing her arms. “Because this one  _ is _ real.”

“Yeah, right,” Collin scoffs. “Next you’re gonna say you figured out the Activity Club’s purpose, and they’re actually the Middle-School Ghostbusters.”

Suzy looks away. “Well...”

Collin stares at her. “...That was a  _ joke, _ Suzy. I was  _ joking.  _ Please don’t tell me that’s actually what they do.”

Suzy looks back at Collin. “Okay, I won’t. But I will tell you ghosts are real, and that I can see them suddenly.”

Collin gives her a skeptical look, and Suzy puffs up her cheeks. “It’s true!” she insists.

With perfect timing, Dimitri makes a noise and lifts his head, blinking blearily in the light. “What’re you two arguing about now?” he asks, voice half mumble.

“Suzy’s trying to convince me ghosts are real and she met a dragon,” Collin says, voice overlaid with Suzy saying “Collin won’t believe me about the ghosts!”

Dimitri blinks a few more times, rubbing sleep out of his eyes, before sitting up and propping himself up on his elbows. “Suzy,” he says, fixing Suzy with a disapproving stare, “you’re not supposed to go around telling people about it.”

Suzy sticks her tongue out at him. “Oh yeah? How’re you gonna stop me now, though?”

Dimitri grumbles something under his breath, letting his head drop back into his arms. Meanwhile, Collin gapes openly at him. “Seriously? You actually believe—”

Dimitri lifts a hand to stop him, head remaining solidly on the table. “I believe the fact that I was seeing them way longer than her,” he mutters, “and also the fact that thanks to her I was missing my mouth for like an hour yesterday. Speaking of which, Suzy, nice haircut.”

As if on cue, the lock of hair Suzy erased way-back-when pops back into existence over her glasses. Suzy blinks, then preens and pushes her glasses up. “You think so? You should’ve seen what I did to Isabel. I’m not sure she even noticed herself, actually.”

Collin glances between them, confused, then throws his arms up in exasperation. “Alright, fine, I’ll suspend my disbelief. But I’m gonna want some solid proof of supernatural phenomena before I start actually believing you two lunatics.”

Suzy shrugs. “Suits me. Dee? You got anything?”

Dimitri grumbles wordlessly. “...You’d have to convince a poltergeist to demonstrate,” he mumbles after a moment. “I hear Max has one hanging around his house. Get on his good graces, somehow, I dunno...”

With that, Dimitri dozes off again, leaving Collin to give Suzy a bemused look and retrieve his 3DS to pick another game to play. Suzy, meanwhile, just sighs and plops her chin down on her arms. “Great. I have a serious problem that needs fixing here, and my only hope for fixing it right now is Maxwell-hecking-Puckett.  _ Great _ .”

Collin hums. “Okay, I’m not saying you  _ should _ blackmail him, pretty much the opposite in fact, but...” He looks over to see Suzy giving him a dry look. “...Why aren’t you just figuring out something you can blackmail him with?”

Suzy makes an annoyed noise, looking away. She grumbles something under her breath, and Collin leans in. “Sorry, what was that? I didn’t quite catch it.”

Suzy takes a deep breath, cheeks tinting pink and then she grits out, “I can’t.”

Collin blinks. “How come? Did you suddenly develop a conscience or something?”

“Please, as if.” Suzy crosses her arms, hunches her shoulders, and looks away.

Collin raises an eyebrow. “Then why? Did you get caught in another double-triple blackmail combo? ‘Cause if so that’s hilar—”

“It’s not that!” Suzy snaps, making Collin jump with her ferocity. Dimitri doesn’t so much as twitch.

“...It’s not that,” Suzy repeats after a moment, quieter. She crosses her arms and looks away again, her cheeks going red. “It’s simpler than that, actually, and significantly harder to get out of.”

“Then what?” Collin asks. “Did you swear on your heart that you’d never commit another amoral act in you life, lest they abandon you forever?”

“What? No,” Suzy says, giving him a confused glance and ignoring how her cheeks heat up a little more. “No, I just had a chat with Isabel earlier, and she—”

“—confessed her undying love for you, to which you responded by vowing to never commit another amoral deed?” Collin quips, smirking as Suzy’s face lights up even brighter. “Hey, you’re making this really easy for me. I didn’t know people could even get that red without actively bleeding.”

“Okay, seriously, what the heck are you getting at here, Collin?” Suzy demands, slamming her hands on the table. “You  _ know _ what I think of Isabel, why do you keep insinuating that I— that we—”

“...That you may have some amount of romantic chemistry?” Collin finishes for her after she makes it clear she can’t finish the sentence on her own. “See, the thing is, you keep  _ saying _ you hate Isabel, but up until last week the most you’ve done with regards to her was… what, glaring at her during history class? And yeah, maybe you talked once or twice back in sixth grade, when you first got that grudge of yours, but that was like a year ago. And then now that you  _ are _ talking to her, I’m seeing a remarkable lack of nemesis-ness. So, take from that what you will.”

Suzy glares at him for a moment, grits her teeth, then takes a deep breath. Once she’s feeling a little more composed, she sits up straight and pretends that little soliloquy didn’t happen. “ _ Anyway, _ as I was saying, I had a chat with Isabel, and among other things, she told me that if she catches me blackmailing anyone she knows, she won’t hesitate to punch me in the face. I have no reason to doubt that.”

For a moment, Collin stares at her blankly. Then the corner of his lips twitches once, twice, and then he bursts into peals of laughter. Suzy’s face lights up again. “I’m being serious here!” she whines.

Collin continues laughing, clutching at his stomach and leaning against the table to avoid falling to the ground, before finally managing to take a breath. He manages to hold it for a moment, before he sees the pout on Suzy’s face and goes right back to laughter.

After a minute, Suzy glares impatiently at him and crosses her arms. Finally, Collin manages to get ahold of himself long enough to pull himself back upright and straighten himself back out. “Sorry, I believe you about that it’s just— pfft— did she actually say it like that? Like, right down to the words?”

Suzy waves her hand vaguely, fighting down the blush. “I mean, more or less. I’m paraphrasing a little, but yeah.”

Collin makes a weird snorting noise at that, but manages to keep the laughter down to nothing more than a snicker. Suzy sighs, resting her chin on her arms again. “Can’t you take this seriously for just a moment? Thanks to Isabel, I can’t use my most lucrative business tactic.”

Collin opens his mouth to speak, and Suzy cuts him off. “If you’re about to suggest I just talk to Max, that’s not gonna work. He still has a grudge from last time I blackmailed him, he’s not gonna do a favour for me just like that.”

Collin holds a finger up for a moment like he’s got a rebuttal, then after a moment he drops it. “Huh. Guess you’re right. Maybe you could try and make it up to him somehow?”

Suzy sighs. “Yeah, but  _ how? _ I spend most of my time burning bridges, not  _ building _ them.”

“A rare moment of self awareness, courtesy of Suzy,” Collin comments. Suzy shoots him a glare, which he ignores in favour of clicking his 3DS shut. “Well, how about instead of worrying about that, we wake Dee up again and play Mario Kart? I’m pretty sure we’ve gone way over the Activity Club discussion quota anyway.”

Suzy grumbles, but slides out of her chair anyway. “Fine, I guess a little time away will let me think better later. Maybe your cat will be there too, that’d help.”

Collin nods automatically, going to shake Dimitri awake, then pauses and turns to call after Suzy. “Hey, remember! No stealing my cat!”

“Yeah, yeah, I remember,” Suzy mutters, stepping into the hall. “Jeez, you smuggle a cat home one time...”

 

* * *

 

Suzy stays up far longer than she probably should, trying to think up ways to get Max to owe her a favour. Ideas range from being incredibly helpful in day-to-day life, to engineering a dangerous situation for her to rescue him from, to getting down on her knees and begging for his forgiveness.

She immediately discarded that last one the moment she thought of it. She’s not  _ that _ desperate.

All that aside, the only thing she has to show for all that is some impressive bags under her eyes the next morning. Collin doesn’t comment, mercifully, instead choosing to let Suzy stare moodily out the window on the way up the hill.

Max is riding the same bus as them, but Suzy can’t bring herself to pester him. Maybe it’s the thought that laying off on the little things will make him more amenable to any hypothetical… apologies, or maybe some part of her thinks that that in and of itself is enough for him to owe Suzy a favour.

Or, Suzy admits to herself, maybe she’s just tired. She has better uses for her time than picking at grudges. Like finding some way to get on Max’s good graces.

Still, the mere fact that Collin is there is enough to distract Suzy. The words he said yesterday buzz through her mind.  _ Not proper nemesis behavior, he says. Hah, I’ll show him. _

Classes for the day have been moved to a different building a little lower down the hill, on account of the fire. It’s significantly more cramped there, on account of not being intended to house the entirety of the school’s population, but they make do.

Aside from that, and the presence of some more spirits Suzy hasn’t seen around school which she immediately notes down, there isn’t much to say about the school day. She spends much of it staring daggers at Max, possibly making him think she’s planning something, and the rest of it is spent staring down Isabel.

Frustratingly, Isabel doesn’t seem to notice. She’d almost hoped Isabel  _ would _ notice, and come over to ask, so Suzy can properly establish their rivalry.

Isabel remains oblivious, however, and Suzy doesn’t even get the chance to approach her during lunch. She, along with the rest of the Activity Club, (and possibly Dimitri,) vanish for the entire period and come back just in time for class looking like they just went on a romp through the woods— leaves and sticks stuck in their hair, panting like they just ran a mile.

Suzy decides not to question it, for once. They were probably just dealing with spirits, or something. Honestly, she didn’t think learning the Activity Club’s purpose would make life  _ less _ interesting, but they always find ways to let her down.

Finally, Suzy spots her chance to confront Isabel— just after class lets out for the day, as Isabel and Ed wave goodbye to their clubmates and begin their trek to the bottom of the hill. Suzy calls out after them, running to catch up, and Isabel turns to wait for her.

Suzy doubles over with her hands on her knees, panting for breath, and Isabel patiently waits a moment before asking what Suzy needs. It takes her a moment more to finish catching her breath, and then Suzy stands up straight and makes her announcement.

A number of dramatic speeches run through Suzy’s mind. Long, heartfelt speeches, declaring her undying hatred. Caliginous tirades on everything about Isabel that frustrates Suzy, from her too-silky hair Suzy just can’t seem to imitate, to her toned biceps, inky brown eyes that still find a way to sparkle with mirth…

In the heat of the moment, only two words come out. “Fight me!”

In the immediate aftermath of that moment, everyone involved freezes. Suzy, pointing dramatically at Isabel with her face flushed red with embarrassment, Isabel staring at her outstretched hand looking slightly confused, Ed… completely unreadable, as per usual. ( _ It’s the glasses, _ Suzy first figured out months ago. _ They completely hide his eyes, how does he even see? _ )

Then, finally, Isabel cracks a small grin. “You sure? I’m probably gonna beat you, you know.”

“Yeah!” Suzy says, only realizing what she’s said a moment after it’s come out of her mouth. “I-I mean, I’m sure! Definitely!”

Isabel gives her a dubious look, amused smile not dropping, before finally she shrugs and continues on her way. “Well, alright,” she says, casually pushing Suzy’s arm back down as she goes. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Besides, I guess you could use some self-defense tips, new spectral and all...”

Suzy blinks, staying rooted in place for a moment as she stares after Isabel, and then Isabel calls back, “You coming or what?”

“R-right!” Suzy stutters out, running to catch up. “So, uh, where are we going?”

“To my house,” Isabel says in a ‘this should be obvious’ tone of voice. “It’s a dojo, remember? You’ve been there?”

Suzy blinks. “Oh, right. But in my defence, I didn’t even go inside! Why do we have to go there, anyway?”

“Well, I figure if we’re going to spar, we may as well do it somewhere designed to have people fighting in it,” Isabel explains, veering sharply through a shortcut between fences. “Plus, there’ll be adult supervision, so if I accidentally kick your butt too hard it can be easily dealt with.”

Suzy makes an understanding hum, then falls silent. “...You’re not gonna question why I suddenly decided to ask you to fight me?” she asks after a moment.

“What, do you want me to?” Isabel asks right back.

“Well, I mean, I was kinda expecting you to.” Suzy shrugs. “I might be wrong, but last I checked yelling things like that wasn’t a thing people do very often.”

Isabel barks a laugh. “Yeah, I guess not,” she agrees. “But honestly, I can think of a number of reasons, most of which boil down to you not being good with words. You’ve got a lot of pent up energy you need to get out, you secretly enjoy the thrill of a fight, you want me to teach you my rad fighting techniques through example...”

Suzy coughs quietly into her hand, looking away as Isabel continues listing off possible reasons.  _ Not quite what I had in mind, but I guess I can work with that. _

 

* * *

 

“...it’s seriously freaky, y’know? Two years without a single new spectral, and then bam!” Isabel clicks her fingers for emphasis as she steps out from the tunnel back into the cool warm evening sunlight. “Max moves in, he’s a spectral now. Johnny gets possessed, he’s a spectral now. Heck, even Dimitri kinda-sorta started helping out a little more again! And then you...”

Isabel trails off, and Suzy tilts her head curiously. Isabel turns around, starting to walk backwards as she gives Suzy a curious look. “Come to think of it, how  _ did _ you become a spectral? You’re not a medium, and I think I’d’ve heard if you had a near-death experience...”

Suzy just shrugs. “I dunno, how do people even become spectrals anyway?”

Isabel starts to open her mouth, but Ed jumps in before she can talk, eager to have a place in the conversation. “Well there’s a bunch of ways! Like Izzy mentioned, you could have a near-death experience, or exposure to spooky stuff— like being possessed, or hanging onto a tool a whole bunch— or sometimes just eating way too many oranges. Or a single lemon.”

Suzy blinks again, reaching up to touch the pencil tucked behind her ear. “Huh. How ‘bout that.”

Isabel, meanwhile, gives Ed a mildly annoyed look before turning back on track to climb up the small hill lining the yard. “Well, anyway, I should probably get you introduced to Gramps before we do anything. Make sure he doesn’t think I’m fighting some random classmate in the backyard for laughs.”

Suzy nods in understanding, more focused on the way the grass reaches all the way to her knees.  _ Don’t they ever cut it? _

After a moment, she decides to voice this thought in the most tactful way. “Hey, what’s with the lawn? You ever heard of a lawnmower?”

Isabel just scoffs. “Well, yeah, ‘course I have. But I’m not sure grandpa has, and you gotta admit, it looks pretty dang cool, doesn’t it?”

Suzy is chagrined to admit she’s right. The blades of grass swaying in the light breeze, waving in hypnotic patterns, and considering the porch looks like it was built specifically to be just above the tops of the grass, she’s forced to realize it seems almost deliberate.  _ How dare you make sense, _ Suzy curses,  _ don’t you know I have to be right all the time with no disagreements? Yes yes, not a single fault in that logic. _

Isabel, meanwhile, continues to wade through the grass up to the steps. Suzy wanders after her, Ed seemingly vanishing at some point before turning up on the other side of the front door when Isabel opens it.

He’s talking to a distressingly tall and muscular— though it’s a bit hard to tell under that robe— old man. The man has a skin tone similar to Isabel’s, and flickering dredges of red spectral energy around his shoulders of the same shade as Isabel’s, so Suzy guesses this is the legendary Grandpa she’s heard so much about.

Grandpa is giving Ed the sort of look you give someone when they’re doing something weird for weird reasons and you’re not gonna stop them, exactly, but you want them to know they’re being super weird. Isabel cuts off whatever Ed’s saying—  _ wait Ed was saying something that might have been important— _ with a cheerful greeting, cuing both Ed and Grandpa to look over at her.

“Oh, welcome home, Izzy!” Ed greets cheerfully.

“Ed, you’ve done this one before,” Isabel says, face going flat as she crosses her arms. “You just snuck off to come in through the back so you could greet me too. It was only funny the first time.”

Ed pouts. “Aw, but couldn’t you have also played along? Suzy hasn’t gotten that prank yet...”

Grandpa interrupts with a gruff clearing of the throat. “Speaking of which, Isabel, would you explain who it is you’ve brought with you?”

Isabel quickly straightens up. “Oh, yes. Grandpa, this is Suzy. She’s a new spectral, and she came with me today because she wanted to spar with me. I guess so she can learn some self defense techniques?”

Grandpa hums thoughtfully, giving Suzy a stern look-over. Suzy gulps quietly, feeling like her entire life’s story is being turned out and shaken to the ground in search of something to disapprove of. After a moment, though, Grandpa turns away, and the feeling passes. “Very well, you can have the yard. I’ll make sure someone’s there to call the doctor if either of you get hurt.”

Behind Grandpa’s back, Isabel silently pumps the air in celebration. Suzy gives her a confused look as she leads them across the room to what Suzy guesses is the back door, and Isabel explains as she pushes the door open. “I always like to train outdoors more than inside,” she says, holding the door for Suzy and Ed, “‘cause the wind helps keep you cool. All the exertion can really build up sweat, y’know?”

Suzy nods understandingly, dropping her backpack next to Isabel’s bag on the edge of the porch and standing around a little awkwardly as Isabel tugs off her jacket and ties it around her waist. “So, uh… how’re we gonna do this?”

Isabel hums thoughtfully. “Well, I was figuring we’d do a round, I’d tell you what all you did wrong, and we keep doing that until you either manage to land a hit or you have to head home. Probably the latter, honestly.”

“Hey, what makes you so sure I can’t beat you?” Suzy asks, crossing her arms and glaring petulantly in an attempt to hide that fact that pretty much all of her is in complete agreement with that assessment.

Isabel gives an amused grin. “What, you want me to make a list? I’m way more experienced, for one, and no offence, but you’re basically an overcooked noodle.”

Suzy huffs, but doesn’t dispute it. “Fine, let’s just do this,” she says, folding her glasses and setting it next to the bags, along with her pencil. She moves to stand across from Isabel, several strides between them, and waits for her to give some kind of cue.

“I’ll let you make the first strike,” Isabel says, settling easily into a light stance. “You can go whenever.”

Suzy nods slowly, taking a moment to glance over back at Ed— he’s sitting on the edge of the deck with a bag of popcorn— before turning back to gauge Isabel. She looks remarkably relaxed, shifting her weight from foot to foot as she watches Suzy right back.

“...Are you gonna—” Isabel starts after a moment, and Suzy picks that moment to strike. She rushes forward, fist rearing up before striking out to connect with—

Thin air, as Isabel casually half-turns, letting Suzy’s fist sail right past. She grabs Suzy’s arm as Suzy tries to turn, and then there’s a blur of movement and Suzy’s breath escapes her as her back hits the grass.

“You’re telegraphing your moves too much,” Isabel says as Suzy blinks stars out of her vision. Seeing it’ll take her a moment to recover, Isabel steps over to lean over Suzy’s face. “You don’t actually have to wind up your punch that much, especially not if you’re only trying to land a hit. And have you ever actually thrown a punch before? You could’ve broken a finger the way you were doing it.”

Suzy freezes for a moment once the words manage to get through to her, then grumbles under her breath and looks away. “Fine, if you’re so sure,” she mutters, pulling herself up, “why don’t you show me how to properly throw a punch?”

Isabel beams, opening her mouth to respond, and Suzy catches what she said just in time to interrupt. “ _ Without _ punching me! I don’t want a practical example, you’d be moving too fast for me to see it properly.”

Isabel pouts exaggeratedly. “Aw, I was gonna do that anyway! I was just gonna punch you in the arm first, is all.”

“I don’t want to be punched at all, thanks,” Suzy grumbles.

Isabel shrugs lightly. “Ah, well, personal preference. Anyway, make a fist.”

Giving Isabel an annoyed look, Suzy begrudgingly lifts her hand and balls it up. Isabel glances at it, and immediately tuts and crosses her arms. “Alright, lesson number one. Don’t tuck your thumb inside the fist.”

Suzy blinks and looks down at her hand, shifting her thumb accordingly. “Why not?”

“‘Cause then if you hit something with any force, it’s gonna get dislocated at best,” Isabel explains. “Here, lemme show you where it’s supposed to go.”

Isabel holds up her own fist, and points to the thumb. “See how my thumb wraps around the outside like this? That’s so it helps keep the other fingers in the right places too. They gotta be all flat like this, so they all hit equally. Otherwise, they could get dislocated, or worse.”

Suzy nods, adjusting her fist to match Isabel’s. Isabel nods in satisfaction, then turns to face at a right angle from Suzy. “Right, now, like I said, you were winding that fist back way too far. Anyone could see that coming from a mile away.”

Punctuating that sentence, Isabel shifts into a tight stance and launches a few swift strikes at the air. “It’s perfectly possible to get just as much force with less wind up,” she says, leaving her arm out in the air for a moment before going back to a casual stance. “Keeping your arms close to your body like that keeps your fists already in position to lash out, and also keeps you ready to defend in case of an attack.”

Suzy nods again, and Isabel steps back with a grin. “Now, try to hit me.”

Suzy watches Isabel for a moment, lifting her fists like Isabel showed her, and then lunges. Her first strike hits nothing, Isabel sidestepping it the same way as before, but Suzy’s ready this time.

Another punch follows, darting out for where Isabel’s head was a moment ago, but Isabel ducks and her own fist darts out to hit just under Suzy’s ribcage. Winded, Suzy’s helpless to stop Isabel from grabbing her and flipping her on her back a second time.

“Not bad,” Isabel says, stepping back as Suzy sits up and coughs her lungs out. “I mean, still pretty predictable, but your stance was alright. Wanna have another go at it?”

“Water first,” Suzy wheezes, then takes a deep breath to ease the adrenaline and pulls herself to her feet. “Didn’t realize I was this thirsty when we started.”

Isabel nods understandingly. “Yeah, sparring really has a way to wear you out, huh? I’ll go get some— oh, good timing!”

Suzy turns to see what Isabel’s looking at, and finds a fierce-looking woman with dark, spiky hair and an impressive scar on her cheek stepping out onto the porch. She’s carrying a few water bottles, handing one over to Ed, and looks up as Isabel runs over. “Hey, Scarface, thanks for the water!” Isabel says, cheerfully accepting one of the bottles.

Scarface grunts. “You can consider it repaid if you never call me that again,” she says, voice low and gruff in a way that fits her appearance remarkably well.

Isabel laughs lightly, quickly twisting the cap off. “Not on your life, Scar!”

Scarface glowers at Isabel for a moment as Isabel eagerly glugs down half the bottle, then lifts her head to look at Suzy. Suzy freezes, feeling once again like she’s being judged for all her sins, and then Scarface tosses a bottle over and turns around.

Suzy scrambles to catch the bottle, and barely notices Isabel saying “Aw, you’re not gonna watch?”

“Why should I?” Scarface asks. “It’s just gonna be you repeatedly knocking her down and occasionally giving tips in between, and I have things I could be doing instead. Like training.”

Isabel pouts for a bit, then when Scarface fails to look impressed she switches to a more judgemental look. “You know, I’m pretty sure there should be some adult supervision here. What if one of us gets hurt? Someone’s gotta be there to take care of stuff.”

“You’re capable kids,” Scarface says, “I’m sure one of you can call an ambulance if anyone gets seriously hurt.”

“And if we can’t?”

Scarface holds out a moment longer under Isabel’s stare, but finally she sighs and relents. “Fine, I’ll stick around for a few rounds.”

Isabel pumps her fists with a quiet “Yes!” as Scarface steps around her to sit next to Ed, and then Isabel turns to face Suzy again. “Hey, you gonna drink that water or what?”

Suzy blinks, then flushes red. “Oh, r-right!”

She struggles with the cap a bit, hand slipping ineffectually due to sweat, and after a bit Isabel gets frustrated watching her and marches over to grab it. Isabel makes opening it look effortless, and after the cap is loosened she hands it back to Suzy. “Here.”

Suzy firmly looks away as she takes the water bottle, fighting back the blush as she lifts it to her mouth.  _ This is Collin’s fault, I’ll bet. He goes around… insinuating things, and now that’s all I can think of. I’ll get my revenge soon, Collin Sloinne, mark my words... _

Now appropriately hydrated, Suzy leaves her water bottle next to Isabel’s and stands across from her. “So,” Suzy says, “round three?”

“Round three,” Isabel agrees. “Again, you can go whenever.”

Suzy nods, shifting into the same stance as before, and looks Isabel over.  _ She managed to dodge me last time because I didn’t prepare for her to dodge the second blow, _ she muses,  _ so I just have to be prepared to strike down after the second dodge. It’s like a memory game. _

With that thought, Suzy strikes forward, expecting Isabel to sidestep her again. Isabel drops straight down and jabs the same spot just below Suzy’s ribcage. What follows is roughly a repeat of the last round, leading to Suzy flipped on her back for the third time that evening.

And, just like the last two times, Isabel hovers over her dispensing advice while waiting for her to recover. “You’re focusing too much on offense,” Isabel says, looking eternally amused. “You’re not even trying to block my attacks, it’s way too easy to take you down.”

“‘s not my fault you move so fast,” Suzy mutters as pulls herself back to her feet and gets back to her feet. “Round four, let’s go.”

 

* * *

 

For the eleventh time that evening, Suzy is flipped on her back.

“You forgot I have limbs other than my arms,” is what Isabel has to say this time. “You managed to block my punches just fine, sure, but then my legs blindsided you.”

“Yeah, because what am I supposed to see coming in a punch fight?” Suzy mutters sarcastically as she picks herself up. “Kicks, from big meaty legs. Just great. Round twelve?”

Isabel looks about ready to agree, but Scarface clears her throat to get their attention. “It’s getting pretty late,” she says, gesturing vaguely at the now-golden sky. “If you’re gonna stay much longer, kid, you should at least let your parents know where you are.”

Suzy nods quickly, and runs over to grab her phone from her bag. She winces when she sees the time. “Aw, man, I’d better go if I wanna get home in time for dinner.”

Isabel’s shoulders slump slightly, but she nods. “I see. Want me to walk you home?”

“Uh, n-no, that’s fine,” Suzy stutters out quickly, sliding her glasses back on her face. “I can get home just fine. Oh, but, uh, will you be free tomorrow?”

Isabel blinks, then lights up in understanding. “Oh, sure! When are you thinking?”

Suzy hums. “I was thinking, maybe a little after lunch? And I can meet you here.”

Isabel nods quickly. “Yeah, that works for me. I’ll just have to confirm it with Grandpa, but I’m sure he’ll be fine with it!”

“Great! Seeya tomorrow!”

With that, Suzy gathers up her stuff and runs off to the driveway, waving all the while. Isabel waves back, and Suzy only cuts it off once she’s out of sight down the tunnel back to the rest of town.

It’s only once she’s halfway home that it occurs to Suzy that maybe, despite the fact that it involves fighting each other, having Isabel teach her how to throw a punch isn’t the most rival-like activity. This thought stalls her for a moment, long enough for Rascal to catch her scent and come out of the woodwork.

With that, all thoughts of rivalry are temporarily flushed from Suzy’s mind in favour of not getting mugged by a cute, friendly cat who wants pettings, and should it catch her it will ensnare her legs and only release her after an obnoxiously long amount of time spent petting it. Cats are significantly faster than humans, on average, so of course much of Suzy’s brainpower has to focus on finding ways to take advantage of what few things she has over Rascal to escape.

She only feels safe when she slams the front door behind her, the quiet thump of cat hitting the dog door and bouncing off like music to Suzy’s adrenaline pumped ears. It’s possible she’s being a little too dramatic for the situation. She doesn’t care.

At least she isn’t late for dinner.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shout out to tumblr user maxpucketts for drawing a Certain Moment from last chapter and making me scream quietly for a minute straight. go look at it (maxpucketts.tumblr.com/post/158535850262/)

_ So where were you after school? _ Collin asks that night as Suzy starts drafting this week’s article. ‘Mayview Middle School Gymnasium Burns Down (Again)’ is what she’s calling it, ignoring the fact that the fire didn’t start in the gym on either occasions. It got affected by the fire both times, didn’t it? So it fits.

_ i was fighting isabel, _ Suzy texts back. There’s a long pause, during which Collin starts and stops typing several times before he finally responds.

_ Were you actually, or are you exaggerating something? _ he asks.

_ im insulted your immediate thought is that im exaggerating, _ Suzy sends.

_ Are you? _ Collin asks.

_ well kinda but _

_ I rest my case. _

Suzy blows a raspberry at her phone, grinning despite herself.  _ arent you gonna ask what exactly im exaggerating though? _ she asks after a moment.

_ Well you’re gonna tell me either way, _ Collin responds,  _ so why expend extra effort? _

_ oh shush you, _ Suzy texts back, incensed.  _ ANYWAY i was gonna tell isabel about how were nemesisses but it came out wrong and we spent the afternoon sparring and i guess kinda she was teaching me how to fight? _

It takes Collin a moment to respond.  _ Huh. That’s a lot more than I expected you to manage. _

_ SHUSH, you _

_ Yeah, yeah. Did you beat her? _

For a moment, Suzy considers being honest. Only for a moment, though.  _ oh yeah i beat her butt SO hard shes gonna have trouble sitting for at least a week _

_ Noted: Suzy got her butt kicked. _

_ hey _

_ Addendum: Multiple times. _

_ i didnt say that _

_ Not outright, you didn’t. You exaggerate more when you’re lying. _

Suzy blinks.  _ Do I? _ she wonders. Shoving that aside, she turns back to her phone.  _ k fine u got me. but s not my fault isabel moves so fast! _

_ Oh yeah? How many bruises did you get? _

_ not that many i dont think, but my back is SUPER sore. i guess all that grass does make for a p good cushion tho _

_...Okay now I’m kinda curious just how she beat you up. _

_ she kept grabbing me by the arm and flipping me on my back _

_ What like a turtle. Are you a turtle Suzy. _

_ no and thats why im so upset. why you gotta treat me like a turtle isabel _

_ Maybe she’s so fast she thinks you’re a turtle, because you’re slow, and so to defeat you she has to flip you on your back? _

_ MAYBE _

_ but srsly tho how is she so amazing. why is she so much better at everything than me _

_ Careful Suzy your crush is showing. _

_ I DONT _

_ HAVE _

_ A CRUSH _

_ ON ISABEL _

_ Okay, but did you even read what you just sent me. _

Suzy glances back up at that message, and realizes with some amount of horror that Collin’s right— it looks an awful lot like something someone with a crush might send.

She dwells on it a moment longer, then slams a pillow into her face a few times and texts Collin back.  _ k u kno wat im done. ttyl i gotta sleep _

Collin texts her back before Suzy has a chance to turn the screen off.  _ Don’t run from your destiny, Suzy! Accept it! _

She doesn't dignify that with a response.

 

* * *

 

Suzy heads out just after noon with a half-eaten sandwich in hand, and almost immediately runs into problems with traffic. Namely, the fact that all the cars around an intersection have stalled, and she’s guessing it’s been like that for a while as there’s no way several dozen people all at once decided to go driving in this part of Mayview.

At first, she’s ready to brush it off as some weird coincidence and move on with her life. Then, halfway through weaving between honking vehicles ( _ what is it about the horn that makes people so compelled to press it when they can’t move?  _ Suzy wonders) she spots it— a traffic-cone-orange dragon perched on the traffic lights, tail wound around the pole as it stares intently down at the cars.

Its eyes meet hers, and for a moment, all is silent.  _ Red eyes, _ she notes, then blinks as the dragon’s eyes switch to yellow.

A few cars lurch forward at the time as the switch in eye color, and Suzy has just enough time to realize the connection and start running before its eyes turn green and all the cars start moving— with or without their driver's permission.

Miraculously, none of the cars hit her. Or, perhaps not so miraculously, given that one of the cars steers wildly to hit a streetlight instead of her at she scrambles onto the sidewalk and starts running.

The dragon lets out an enraged shriek when Suzy escapes uninjured, and decides to take care of things itself. It leaps from the traffic light, soaring smoothly through the air to land in front of Suzy, and she has a split second to notice its eyes are yellow again before it shrieks in her face.

She socks it in the nose and keeps running.

Perhaps the dragon’s nose was a weak point of some sort, or it was simply not expecting Suzy to strike back like that, but either way Suzy leaves it dazed in the dust for a moment before it recovers and realizes its quarry is escaping. With another shriek it gives chase, leaving small grooves in the sidewalk where its claws hit, and Suzy barely manages to duck into an alleyway before its snapping jaws can catch her.

In the time it takes the dragon to scrabble around and launch itself in her direction, Suzy’s already at the other end of the alley. It knocks over a few trashcans in its rush to catch her, slipping on their contents and slamming its chin into a dumpster, and for a moment Suzy feels sorry for the poor clumsy lizard.

Then she remembers it just tried to hit her with several cars, and she immediately stops pitying it.  _ All the better, I’ll say, _ part of her muses,  _ I can’t start having a conscience now of all times. _

The scrap yard's near here, Suzy realizes, ducking under the dragon as it leaps for her and darting off in another direction while it turns. Another part of her notes it has a spiky fringe around its chin and some long back-facing horns.  _ Now’s not the time! _ she yells at her brain.

She vaults over a railing, lets the dragon soar overhead, and cuts a diagonal down the hill before stumbling onto a dirt path. She blinks as she realizes where she is.  _ Oh, come on, _ she thinks at her navigational systems,  _ just because I noticed we’re near the junk yard doesn’t mean we have to go there! Though now that I think of it… _

The dragon shrieks again, reminding Suzy of its continued presence and prompting her to resume running. She runs straight into the junkyard, eyes casting about in search of something that could work—

Another lunge, and Suzy doesn’t dodge so well this time. The dragon manages to score a strike down Suzy’s side, leaving a shallow cut down her back and taking her jacket with her. It pauses, either surprised it actually landed a hit or preening in satisfaction, and Suzy takes the opportunity to scramble away.

After a moment, though, the dragon shakes the jacket off its claws and looks around in search of its prey. It hisses when it realizes Suzy’s out of sight, demeanour shifting from excited cheetah to creepy housecat as it begins to stalk around the mountains of scrap.

It finds Suzy standing in front of a broken-down car, doors missing and wheels gone. It’s practically just a frame. She doesn’t even look like she’s planning to use it as some kind of shelter, just standing in front of where the doors used to be and staring the dragon down with energy flaring around her shoulders.

With a shriek, the dragon lunges, and Suzy leaps backwards— into the car— rolls out the other side— and the dragon chases, realizing too late that the door on the other side isn’t gone as Suzy slams it shut.

The dragon’s head fits right through the window, barely, but the rest of its body is left stuck in the body of the car. It tries to pull back, but its horns get caught on the door.

Suzy laughs, picking herself up from the ground and dusting herself off. “Hah, not so scary now, are you?” she asks, reaching out to boop it on the nose and quickly pulling her hand back when the dragon snaps at it. “I figured you couldn’t just pass through things when you knocked over those trashcans.”

The dragon gives up straining at the metal, eyes rapidly flickering between colors as it hisses. Suzy huffs and puts her hands on her hips. “Hey now, don’t give me that. You just tried to kill me, I’m well within my rights to trap you here.”

It doesn’t stop hissing, and after a moment it raises the volume up to a short shriek before resuming scrabbling at the rusted frame. The ding of a bicycle bell makes Suzy look up just in time to see Isabel careen off her bicycle into a pile of mattresses.

Suzy winces and trots over. “You okay?” she asks as Isabel groans and picks herself up.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Isabel grumbles, pushing herself up. “Bike just went out of control, is all.” She blinks, then lights up. “Oh, hey, Suzy! What’re you doing here?”

“Got chased by a weird traffic controlling dragon,” she says, punctuated by the dragon shrieking again. “That might have had something to do with your bike too, now that I think about it.”

Isabel makes an understanding noise, leaning over to peer past Suzy at the dragon. “Yeah, that’d do it. Man, I hate it when that kinda powerful thing shows up. Always a mess to deal with, and it’s hard to explain what they do.”

Suzy watches as Isabel wanders over to the dragon, which shrieks in indignation as she pats it on the head before cutting off when a bands of red energy wraps around its snout. Suzy happens to glance down at Isabel’s bike, and gets distracted watching the wheels erratically start and stop spinning.

For a moment, they’re silent, Isabel patting the captive dragon on the snout while Suzy is fascinated by the effect the wild changing of its eye color has on Isabel’s bike. Then Isabel lifts her other hand and forms a blade of energy around it. “Welp, guess I better mercy kill you now!” Isabel chirps.

Suzy looks up sharply. “What? How come?”

“It’s dangerous, isn’t it?” Isabel says, turning to look at Suzy, keeping her hand hovering over the dragon. “You were running from it for a reason, right? And if it controls traffic like you said, just letting it go would let it wreak huge amounts of havok.”

“Yeah, but...” Suzy trudges over, looking at the dragon as it goes still. Its eyes are yellow, and it looks almost confused. “...it just seems a little cruel to kill a trapped animal. I mean, it’s not really going anywhere, is it?”

Isabel sighs, resting a hand over her face. “And now you’re sounding like Max,” she mutters. Before Suzy can enquire on this, though, Isabel looks back up. “Look, it’s not gonna be really  _ dead, _ exactly? Chances are, given how strong it is, it’s more likely to just… tool up. And besides, it’s dangerous to let it run around. Better to put it down while we have the chance, rather than deal with it causing a fifty-car pile-up in the middle of town.”

Suzy stares at the dragon for a bit, wondering for a moment if it can understand them. “...Yeah, I guess you’re right,” she says, and the dragon’s eyes go red. “I guess it’s just cause it seems so helpless trapped like this.”

“Yeah, it’s actually a little cute, really,” Isabel agrees, lifting her blade-arm as the dragon starts struggling against its prison again. Isabel’s arm lances down, blade of spectral energy digging bloodlessly into the dragon’s head, and for a moment the dragon goes still.

Then it dissolves into white, form shrinking and shifting into something more smoke-like as it slinks away through the air. Isabel dispels the blade and chases after it, grabbing for her umbrella from her bag, then slows to a stop as reality warps around a rusted stop sign and the dragon’s… ghost, for lack of a better word, vanishes into it.

Isabel picks the sign up, turning around looking ready to make some quip, but falls silent when she sees the somber expression on Suzy’s face.

Instead, Isabel just rests the sign on her shoulder and walks over to her bike. “C’mon,” she says, setting it upright, “let’s head back to my place.”

Suzy nods, wandering after Isabel as she tries to sort through the numerous conflicting feelings in her head.  _ Maybe fighting Isabel for a while will help, _ she muses.

 

* * *

 

Ed’s playing Jenga with several of Francisco Guerra’s students when Isabel gets back, and much to his frustration the sound of her slamming the door open is perfectly timed to startle him into knocking the tower down.

“Jeez, Izzy,” he whines, glaring up at her as she marches across the room. “Didja have to be so loud?”

“Consider it payback for trying to pull the home-all-along prank on me again yesterday,” Isabel says, looming over Ed with an amused grin. “By the by, do you knows where Gramps is? Me and Suzy picked up a new tool.”

Ed shakes his head. “Nah, he wandered off somewhere a while ago. Is that why you stole a roadsign? Isn’t that illegal?”

“Please, it was in a junkyard,” Isabel says. “I’m sure no one cares.”

A few more words are exchanged, and Suzy tunes them out in favour of examining the room. The decorations are a little… odd. Curtains in all colors hang from the walls and ceiling, seemingly just there for the aesthetic, not to hide anything.

Isabel heads over to the backdoor and Suzy follows, watching Isabel lean the stop sign against the wall (“I’m just gonna leave this here for the moment, that’s cool, right?”) before stepping out onto the deck and shrugging off her jacket.

“We have until about three before my regular training,” Isabel says, depositing her jacket on the edge of the deck and stretching her arms. ( _ Curse you, Collin!  _ Suzy laments, looking away to hide her blush.) “So I was thinking we’d do things a little differently instead of going straight to me beating you up.”

“O-oh?” Suzy asks, glancing over nervously.  _ I’m not sure that’s something you’re supposed to be casual about. Is beating people up something you’re supposed to be casual about? _

Isabel nods, sitting down and motioning for Suzy to sit next to her. Suzy does so, somewhat warily, and watches as Isabel lifts one hand wreathed in spectral energy. “This is something that’s really only applicable against spectrals and spirits. It’s a technique my grandpa made, called Spectral Fist, and it involves forming things out of spectral energy.”

Suzy perks up. “Oh, like what you did with the dragon? When you bound its mouth and… the blade.”

Isabel nods, forming the blade around her hand for a moment. “Yeah, that’s a pretty simple construct to form. The binding on its mouth was a little more complicated since I had to keep it connected to me otherwise it’d dissipate.”

Suzy nods along, not understanding half the words Isabel just used. “So, you’re gonna show me how to do that?”

“Well, not exactly,” Isabel says. “Constructs are actually one of the more complicated things to learn, for now I’m just gonna show you the most basic offensive tactic— the Spec Shot!”

Isabel punctuates that sentence by firing off two red bolts into the sky. Suzy yelps, jumping a few inches off the ground and landing on her butt, and Isabel laughs. “Wow, jumpy, much? You gotta relax, I’m not gonna start wailing on you without any warning.”

Suzy huffs. “I’m fine,” she insists, pushing herself back up and pushing a few strands of hair out of her face. “Let’s just do this already.”

Isabel nods, and scoots around to face the yard. “Alright, first thing you gotta do is get a bunch of energy flowing down your arm...”

 

* * *

 

Suzy’s first attempt at a spec shot shoots a few inches out before fizzling out of existence.

“Well, it’s better than Max’s first try,” Isabel comments. “Yours could at least have some short-range applicability, his just… plopped.”

Suzy just grumbles and flops onto her back. “Yeah, but it takes so much  _ build up. _ When am I gonna have time to focus on my finger when you’re busy sweeping me off my feet?”

“It doesn’t take that much time once you’ve done it a few times, and I tend to do the buildup while moving into position—” Isabel says, and then the wording catches up to her. She grins slyly at Suzy. “—and hey, I didn’t know you felt that way about me.”

Suzy blinks, confused, and then goes bright red. “I didn’t— I didn’t mean it like that! That was just a slip of the tongue!” she insists.

Isabel laughs and waves it off. “Nah, I didn’t think so, you’re just so fun to rile up!”

“I don’t know if I should be relieved or annoyed by that,” Suzy mutters, and when Isabel looks like she’s about to enquire on that Suzy quickly sits up. “Anyway! Are we gonna keep doing spec shots, or are we gonna fight?”

“Your choice, really,” Isabel says, straightening up. “We still have lots of time to keep practicing spec shots and get a bunch of sparring in.”

Suzy bounces to her feet, glasses sliding down from her forehead to her nose on their own. “I wanna spar! All that channeling energy stuff got me really pumped up for some reason and I wanna get it out.”

Isabel grins as she gets up to join Suzy. “Real eager to get beat up again, huh? I’ll oblige.”

Suzy sticks her tongue out at Isabel and hops into the grass. “We’ll see.”

They get to their spots— Suzy thinks she can see the places she kept getting flipped onto, where the grass is still flattened— and Isabel starts to do some stretches. Practically daring Suzy to take the opportunity.

After a moment, while Isabel is in the middle of loosening up her shoulders, Suzy lunges. Her fist speeds out towards Isabel’s chest, Isabel sidesteps, her knee shoots out, Suzy takes a knee to the gut and an elbow to the back.

Suzy coughs her lungs out on the grass while Isabel crouches next to her and pats her on the back consolingly.

Once Suzy’s got that under control, Isabel leans back and offers her her glasses back. “Here,” she says, “You should probably leave these on the deck. Don’t wanna lose them in the grass.”

“How can you be so friendly when you just beat the snot out of me?” Suzy mutters, accepting the glasses and pulling herself up to her knees.

Isabel blinks. “Is it that weird? I mean, I’ve been fighting people practically all my life, it’s my main way of getting to know people.”

Suzy hums weakly as she gets up and wanders over to the deck, where she sits down. “Oh yeah? What’ve you picked up from me, then?”

Isabel hums, shutting her eyes thoughtfully and crossing her arms. “Well, you have a lot of enthusiasm and confidence, which would take you a lot farther if you had the raw skill to back it up. You bounce back pretty well from loss, though. And you try to seem tough, but aren’t very good at it.”

Suzy sputters. “A-all that? Just from fighting me a few times?!”

“You’ll get used to it,” Ed says, handing Suzy a water bottle. “Gramps taught both of us how to read our opponents, so we can ‘better predict their next move’ or whatever.”

“I… guess that makes sense,” Suzy says, accepting the water and twisting it open automatically before she realizes who gave it to her. “Wait, where the heck did you come from?!”

Ed gives her an amused slash incredulous look. “Um, the  _ door _ ?” he says, jabbing his thumb at the door in question. “Where else?”

“That’s not what I—” Suzy starts, then stops and after a moment sighs. “You know what, no, I’m not gonna question it. Ninja training or something. You guys are all weirdos.”

Suzy gulps down a few mouthfuls of water, then leaves it on the deck with her glasses. For a moment, she considers leaving her pencil there too, but something changes her mind.  _ I could use it, anyway, _ she muses as she returns to Isabel.

“So,” Isabel says, “Ready for round two?”

“Round thirteen,” Suzy corrects.

Isabel scoffs. “Only if you’re counting it with yesterday,” she says. “And besides, thirteen’s bad luck, isn’t it? D’you really wanna risk it?”

“Might just end up being bad luck for you,” Suzy says. “Does it really matter anyway? Round thirteen!”

“No, round two!” Isabel argues, grinning.

“Round thirteen!”

“Two!”

“Thirteen!”

“Two!”

Suzy gets fed up and leaps forward, throwing a punch at Isabel’s face. “Thirteen!”

Isabel tilts her head out of the way, grin widening. “Two,” she shoots back, jabbing at Suzy’s chest and giving an appreciative eyebrow-raise when Suzy leaps back.

“Thirteen,” Suzy snipes, leg shooting out at Isabel’s gut.

Isabel dances back, then lunges forward again as Suzy straightens up again. “Two.”

Suzy tries to jab at Isabel as she gets into close quarters, but all she hits is air. Isabel dances around to Suzy’s back, hooking her arm around Suzy’s neck, and on impulse Suzy headbutts her in the nose. “Thirteen!”

Isabel lets go and stumbles back, hands going to her face. Suzy takes the opportunity to twist around and throw another punch. Isabel dodges, tilting her head to the side again, and one arm shoots out to the side.

A whip of spectral energy wraps around Suzy’s arm. Isabel uses that point of leverage to twist Suzy around, knocking her to the ground with her arm behind her back and pinning her there. “Round two,” Isabel says, an air of self-satisfaction about her as she dispels the whip and gets off Suzy. “I win, so it’s round two.”

Suzy huffs as she gets up, rubbing her shoulder and glaring at Isabel. “That’s no fair,” she complains, “if that’s how we’re deciding things you’ll always get your way.”

Isabel beams. “What, so you’re saying I’ll always beat you?” she asks.

“The way things are going?  _ Probably, _ ” Suzy grumbles.

“Hey, don’t be so down,” Isabel says, rubbing at her nose. “I mean, you  _ did  _ manage to land a hit this time.”

Suzy blinks, then brightens up. “Oh yeah, I guess that does count!”

“Yeah,” Isabel laughs. “I mean, it was probably just as much my doing as yours, trying to put you in a headlock might not have been my brightest move… but still, it just goes to show even I have flaws you can exploit!”

Suzy nods energetically. “Yeah!”

“So,” Isabel says, “Round three?”

“Fourteen,” Suzy corrects automatically, and simmers down a little. “And actually, I was thinking maybe you could show me a little more about making spectral energy constructs?”

Isabel nods quickly. “Yeah, okay! C’mon, let’s go sit down.”

As the two girls head over to join him on the deck, Ed pouts. “Aw, you’re not gonna keep fighting? But it was so fun to watch!”

“Glad to know my suffering brings you joy,” Suzy says dryly.

Isabel, meanwhile, just grins and hops onto the deck. “Don’t worry, Ed, the day’s still young!” she chirps.

Suzy groans in response and doesn’t bother putting her feet on the deck, instead choosing to lie face-down on it, splinters be damned. “Please, just let me rest for a bit,” she mutters, voice muffled even further by the wood.

Isabel tilts her head. “Sorry, what was that? I can’t hear you through the wood.”

Suzy grunts and lifts her head. “It’s nothing,” she says, “let’s get to the teaching already. The teaching that does not involve you punching me.”

“Hey, you brought that on yourself,” Isabel says, sitting in front of Suzy with crossed arms and legs. “Who was it that went to me and yelled ‘fight me’ at the top of their lungs, again?”

Suzy grumbles wordlessly and lets her head thunk back on the wood. Isabel raises an eyebrow. “You gonna learn like that?” she asks.

For a moment, Suzy thinks, then props herself up on her elbows. “Yes. You gonna teach me or what?”

Isabel gives her a skeptical look, then shrugs and leans forward. “Alright, you do you. On your shoulders be it.”

Suzy blows a raspberry at Isabel. “ _ Teach me, _ wisecracker,” she repeats.

“Yeah, yeah, be patient,” Isabel says. She flares up energy around her arm, and holds it up in demonstration. “Now, the basic principles are about the same as the spec shot, so you’re gonna wanna get that energy.”

Suzy nods, flaring energy around one hand. “Check,” she says, twirling a finger around to watch the way the energy dances.

“Right, now  _ instead _ of focusing your entire being on your finger, you gotta kinda...” Isabel trails off, tilting her head back and glancing about thoughtfully. “...It’s kinda hard to put into words. You kinda have to…  _ will _ the energy into moving how you want it to? If that makes sense?”

Suzy frowns, screwing her face up in concentration as she focuses on the energy around her arm. She thinks it flickers a little, maybe, but it’s hard to tell if it’s because of her focus or if a stray breeze caught it. After a moment, she lets out a sigh and shakes her head. “No, it’s not working.”

“Don’t get down,” Isabel says consolingly. “It took me a while to figure it out too! But once you figure out the basics, it’s actually not that far to start making more complicated things. It’s like learning to ride a bike!”

“I never learned how to ride a bike,” Suzy says, blunt as ever.

Isabel blinks. “...Okay, maybe that’s not the best comparison to make.”

“Yeah, it’s fine.” Suzy glares at the energy around her hand a moment longer, then lets her head thunk back on the ground. “You learned this stuff from your Grandpa, right? How’d he teach you this stuff?”

Isabel goes quiet, and after a moment Suzy lifts her head curiously. “...That was years and years ago, though,” Isabel says, once she notices Suzy staring. “I don’t really remember exactly what he said. And it took me a while to figure it out too! So why don’t you keep practicing?”

Suzy hums, then shifts up into a sitting position. She lifts her hand, alight with pink spectral energy again. “You got any more tips? Just willing it to move doesn’t seem to be working.”

“Ah— you’re not supposed to just want to  _ move _ it,” Isabel corrects, smiling. “I mean, you can if that works for you, but I find it’s easier if you have a shape in mind for it. Like, uh… try making a ring?”

Suzy nods slowly, focusing on the energy, and willing it to bend under her will. It flickers, bending and weaving and splitting ever so slightly in the middle, and then a particularly strong breeze sends it streaming into Suzy’s face, breaking her concentration.

Isabel laughs. “Maybe we should do this inside?”

Growling, Suzy shakes her head and sticks out her hand again. “No, no, I  _ got _ this. I almost had it.”

Isabel makes some sort of noise of acceptance, but Suzy’s already tuned her out.  _ C’mon, turn into a ring, c’mon, c’mon… _

The energy flickers again, bending, twisting, starting to split down the middle before changing its mind and shakily twisting into something like a tendril…

Something green moves in the corner of her vision. She instinctively glances at it, recognizing it as a vaguely transparent green spider perched on her shoulder, and she turns back to her work.

Then, with a yelp, she realizes there’s a  _ spider _ on her shoulder. She jolts away, scrambling to knock it off, and once her head unclouds from the panic she notices Ed laughing. “Ed!” Isabel scolds, as the spider dissipates into energy. “Come  _ on, _ is now really the time?”

“Sorry, Izzy,” Ed says, wiping away tears of laughter, “it’s just— did you  _ see _ that reaction? It’s priceless!”

Isabel crosses her arms. “Ed. I am  _ trying _ to teach Suzy an important skill for spectrals, and you’re _ getting in the way. _ Are you at all able to behave, or will you have to leave?”

Ed stares sternly back at Isabel, matching her pose limb-for-limb, and with some frustration Suzy tunes them out again to focus on her energy.  _ Focus, focus, come ON… _

The energy flickers, twisting together a little, but otherwise refuses to bow to Suzy’s will. With a frustrated growl, she sharply twists her hand through the air, moving so the energy trails behind her and forms a loop for just a moment.

And then, as Suzy clenches her hand around the messy ring, she finds it feels ever so slightly less like smoke. She blinks, and with her concentration broken, the ring fades back into smoke and dissipates in the wind.

“Uh—” Suzy starts, interrupting Isabel and Ed’s staring contest (which segued into making faces at each other at some point, with the addition of spectral energy constructs to accentuate the silliness) and making them look over curiously.

“What is it, Suzy?” Isabel asks. “Did you manage it?”

“I… maybe?” Suzy says. “Hang on, lemme try that again...”

Instead of trying to force it into the shape of a ring, Suzy focuses more on getting it to twist into that pillar-ish shape. A quick twist of her arm sends it trailing into the shape of a ring. Again, it’s shaky, more like a misshapen pentagon than a circle, but now that Suzy’s expecting it she manages to hold onto it a moment longer before it dissipates.

After a moment, Isabel claps. “Good job, Suzy! Not the most efficient way, I don’t think, but if it _ works _ , it’s as good a place as any to start!”

Suzy glares weakly. “You know, you might get a little better at praising people if you learned to stop after just ‘good job’.”

Isabel tilts her head, a faux-innocent smile on her face. “What? I’m just being honest. Besides, you’re learning faster than Ed did.”

“Izzy, do you have to tell her…?” Ed whines, reaching over to tug at Isabel’s shirt.

Isabel gives him an amused look. “I dunno, it seems like a pretty reasonable punishment for getting in the way of her learning. So, yeah, it took Ed like,  _ weeks _ to figure out how to make even basic constructs like that.”

Ed lets out a wordless whine, and Suzy just quirks an eyebrow curiously. “Really? You both seem pretty good at it now, though.”

Isabel preens, and Ed gives her a vaguely betrayed look. “Oh, I know, right?” Isabel says. “But I mean, I’ve been learning this stuff since I could talk, so of course I know how to do it better than you. Practice makes perfect, and all that.”

Suzy hums, then nods after a moment. “Yeah, I get it,” she says, standing up and cracking her back to loosen up. “But I’m pretty sure I can practice that some more on my own time, how about we get back to the other thing now?”

Isabel blinks. “Which other thing?”

“Fight me, Isabel,” Suzy clarifies. “Round fourteen, let’s go, I’ve only managed to land one hit so far.”

“Round three,” Isabel corrects, obligingly getting up. “And sure, I’m always ready to beat up a newbie. And hey, since you managed to land a hit last time, why don’t we move onto the next stage of training?”

Suzy blinks. “What do you mean by that?” she asks.

Several seconds, Suzy finds herself flipped on her back on the grass again, Isabel standing over her looking smug. “That,” Isabel says, “is what I mean.”

For a moment, Suzy is silent, and then she glares at Isabel. “Hey, have you considered maybe slowing down a little? I didn’t even see you  _ move _ there.”

Isabel gives a puzzled frown. “Whaddya mean? I was just going how I normally do.”

“Okay, then,” Suzy says, sitting up and crossing her arms. “In that case, you are  _ terrifying _ and I never want to get into a proper fight with you. Also,  _ please _ try slowing down to normal-people speed.”

Isabel gives Suzy a dubious look, then shrugs. “Alright, whatever you say. Ed, can you announce the beginning of rounds, now that Suzy doesn’t start them at her leisure?”

Ed sits up quickly and nods. “Yes, ma’am!” he barks, saluting. “On your marks!”

Isabel bounces merrily over to an arbitrary spot on the grass, and Suzy more sedately wanders over to a similarly-arbitrary spot several feet away. Ed perches himself at the edge of the deck in between them, lifting one hand in pistol-position pointing up with energy gathering around his finger. “If you’re ready...”

Isabel nods. Suzy nods too, ignoring the bead of sweat trailing down the back of her neck. Ed grins. “Round Three Slash Fourteen...” he trails off, deliberately building tension, before finally with a crack he lets off a spec-shot. “Begin!”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as you may have noticed, i missed posting this chapter last thursday! those of you on tumblr may have already seen my post about that (http://brushstrokesapocalyptic.tumblr.com/post/158758186864/) but for those of you who haven't: i was/still am sick, and because some of the oncoming chapters need some pretty heavy rewriting, i wanted to have some extra time to write them without the buffer catching up! i hope you understand!

“...aaand that’s round Twenty Slash Thirty-One! Isabel wins again!” Ed chirps.

Isabel is perched neatly on Suzy’s back, giving Suzy a smug look as she struggles to turn her head enough to properly land a glare. “You’re just showing off at this point, aren’t you?” Suzy asks, voice half-muffled by the ground.

“Maybe~” Isabel sing-songs, before finally climbing off and watching Suzy stand back up wearily. “But hey, you’re getting better! You lasted almost a minute there, I think!”

“Minute and a half, actually,” Ed says, looking at his phone. “Oh, also, Gramps got back while you two were having that staredown.”

“Oh, see, that’s even—” Isabel starts, then jolts around as she processes the second sentence. “—I mean, uh, hey Grandpa! Welcome back!”

Grandpa grunts. “Isabel. You’re still fighting the new spectral?”

Isabel raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean, ‘still’?”

“I had expected you would tire of this tomfoolery after a few rounds,” Grandpa says. “You will grow complacent, fighting someone so far below your skill level.”

_ Come to think of it, _ Suzy muses,  _ do I actually know Isabel’s Grandpa’s name? I keep thinking of him as just Grandpa, but that can’t be right. He’s not  _ my _ Grandpa. _

Isabel crosses her arms. “Oh, so now trying to teach someone through example is gonna hamper me? First you harp on me for not consistently beating people stronger than me, now you’re on about me fighting someone I  _ can _ beat? What  _ should _ I do then?”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Suzy pipes up, “but I was just wondering something. What  _ is _ your name, actually? ‘Cause I’ve been mentally referring to you as Isabel’s Grandpa all this time and I somehow doubt that’s actually your name.”

Isabel’s grandpa blinks, as if he’s surprised to have his Quality Family Bonding™ interrupted by such a meaningless worm. He recovers after a moment, turning smoothly to face Suzy with his arms folded behind his back. “Ah, certainly. I am Francisco Guerra, inventor of the Spectral Fist style of fighting, and—”

“—Right, Fransisco, got it,” Suzy says, nodding quickly to cut Fransisco off and idly twirling her pencil around her finger.  _ Wait, I still had that behind my ear? Man, I’d almost thought it would’ve fallen out at some point during all that. _ “I already knew all that other stuff, it was just your name that was bothering me.”

Francisco looks offended at having been interrupted, and begins to voice his displeasure, but Suzy ignores him. “Oh, by the way, Isabel!” She trots over to the deck, picking up her phone and turning the screen on. “Before I forget, what’s your number? I wanna be able to challenge you to a fight slash get beaten up again whenever, not just when we’re in the same meatspace.”

Isabel perks up. “Oh, yes, good point! Hang on, lemme grab my phone.”

In true millennial fashion, they proceed to cheerfully ignore their elders in favour of facilitating better communication with each other through use of technology. As Suzy finishes tapping in Isabel’s number into her contacts and confirms, though, she pauses. Her eyes land on Dimitri’s name, and after a moment she taps the button to text him and turns around. “Hang on, gotta do something before I forget again,” she says when Isabel makes a questioning noise.

_ hey dee, _ she sends, _ im just curious how long did it take for your mouth to come back after i erased it?? _

After a moment spent seeing if Dimitri is gonna text back immediately, Suzy pockets her phone again. “Sorry about that, I had to ask Dee something.”

Isabel blinks. “You mean Dimitri? What was it?”

“Oh, nothing much,” Suzy says, waving her hand flippantly with her pencil held between three of her fingers. “I just wanted to know how long it took for his mouth to reappear after I accidentally erased it with my pencil.”

“Oh, I see,” Isabel says. Then she blinks again. “Wait, you— erased it, you say? With that pencil?”

“...Yeah? Because it’s a tool?” Suzy gives Isabel an odd look. “Oh, did I not mention that?”

“No, I don’t think you mentioned it, it’s not that much of a surprise it’s just...” Isabel trails off, frowning in a vaguely puzzled way. “...Where did you get that pencil, exactly?”

Suzy blinks slowly, frowning carefully. “I dunno, I just… found it? Lying around somewhere? What does it matter?”

Isabel frowns a little deeper at Suzy, then turns and waves it off. “Oh, it’s probably nothing. It’s just that I’m pretty sure I know that pencil, and last I checked it was  _ supposed _ to be archived with all the rest.” She pauses. “Then again, I dunno if it ever actually got dealt with after I gave it to Mister S. I gave it to him, he wrote Max’s late pass with it, and then...”

Isabel hums and haws for a bit, then raises her eyebrows. “Huh. It could very well have just been lying around for someone to find. Pretty lucky, then, considering it means we got another new spectral out of it!”

“It is not always so fortunate to have new people around,” Gra— Francisco butts in, suddenly looming next to Isabel despite having been there the whole time without seemingly taking up as much space as he is now. Even though he’s still taking up just as much space.  _ How does he do it? _ Suzy wonders. “It is difficult to train them into competence,” Francisco continues, “and until then you have to protect them vigilantly.”

“I don’t see why you’re the one complaining,” Isabel says, crossing her arms. “You’re not obligated to do anything, here.”

“And neither are you,” Francisco says, “yet you do anyway. Why?”

“Um, because I  _ want _ to?” Isabel says. “Suzy came to me asking about it—”

“Yes, that is exactly what happened there and what is happening now is exactly what I had in mind at the time,” Suzy mutters.

“—so I don’t see why it matters so much to you,” Isabel says, disregarding whatever Suzy just said as probably not important. “So why don’t you leave us alone?”

Francisco grumbles under his breath, then turns away. “Fine, foolish granddaughter, do whatever you want. Don’t let me stop you from wearing yourself thin.”

Isabel watches him go with an annoyed glare, and once he’s out of sight she sighs and sits down. “Well, that sure did happen.”

Suzy sits down next to her, giving where Francisco just left a puzzled look. “What’s his deal? If he’s a teacher or whatever, shouldn’t he be supportive of people who need teaching, not… whatever that was?”

“The opposite of supportive? Unsupportive?” Isabel quips. “Yeah, you’d think so, but turns out he doesn’t generally end up teaching  _ new _ spectrals, he just picks up people who’ve already been spectrals a while but don’t happen to know his style. The only kids I know he’s dealt with are like, me ‘n Ed. No idea why he’s against me teaching you, though.”

“Hm. Maybe ‘cause you’re his student...” Suzy theorizes, “...so his student having a student is too much complexity for his feeble old man brain?”

Isabel laughs. “Yeah, isn’t that a thought? He can’t figure out what he’d have to call you, so he’d rather you just not be in a position where he has to acknowledge you.”

“Oh, in that case, maybe I should just cease to exist?” Suzy jokes lightly. “To accommodate him, I mean. Just go ahead and erase myself, maybe then he’ll be happy!”

Isabel laughs harder, and with a bright grin Suzy lifts her pencil. “Well, I’d better get right on that!”

Isabel looks up to find Suzy starting to run the eraser down her finger, leaving it nonexistent in it its trail. Isabel blanches. “Wait, hang on, were you serious?”

“Sure!” Suzy chirps, moving onto the next finger. “I’ve been meaning to figure out how far these powers go anyway, so now’s as good a time as any!”

“Nooo!” Isabel cries, laughter spilling into her voice even as she tries to tackle Suzy to the ground. “Suzy, no, you don’t have to make this sacrifice!”

Suzy laughs, dodging out of the way and holding her hands out to keep them from Isabel. She erases the rest of the fingers on that hand in one go. “It’s too late for me, Isabel! I’ve already made this sacrifice, let me see it through to the end!”

“I can’t!” Isabel laughs. “I swore, back when Max lost his arm to that vicious Hitball game! No more heroic sacrifices, not if I can help it!”

“You can’t stop me now!” Suzy cries, straining to keep her pencil out of Isabel’s reach as she twists it around. The fingers holding onto it pop out of existence as the eraser runs by them, and both Suzy and Isabel go silent as it falls and lands gently in the grass.

Somewhere, crickets chirp.

“Hm.” Suzy meets Isabel’s eyes. “Guess I should’ve started with something other than my fingers, huh.”

For a moment, they just look at each other, and then Isabel and Suzy break into fresh peals of laughter. “You seriously— you seriously didn’t think that far ahead?” Isabel asks, wiping tears from her eye with a grin.

“Hey, cut me some slack!” Suzy says, crossing her arms and fighting to look stern. “It was a snap decision! I’m sure it would’ve occurred to me if I’d been planning that ahead of time.”

She manages to keep a straight face for all of three seconds before breaking out laughing again. After a moment, though, she’s interrupted by her phone buzzing. “Oh, that must be Dimitri!” she chirps. She goes to grab her phone, but the most she manages to do is remove it from her pocket through use of friction before it unsticks from her skin and falls on the floor.

Suzy hums. “Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best course of action.”

Isabel just laughs harder.

“Maybe you could try making spectral energy fingers?” Ed suggests after a moment, and Suzy shakes her head.

“No, doesn’t spectral energy not touch normal things?” Suzy asks. “...There’s probably a better way I could’ve phrased that.”

“Oh, yeah. Unless your phone’s possessed?”

Suzy shakes her head again. “Nah, don’t think so.”

“Darn.”

Suzy’s phone buzzes again. “Someone should probably actually get that, though. It might be important.”

“I got it,” Isabel says, picking up Suzy’s phone. She turns the screen on, glances at the message, and holds it up for Suzy to see.

_ About half an hour, I think, _ Dimitri says.  _ Why do you ask? _

Suzy stares at it for a moment, then glares down at her hands. “Could you tell him what happened?”

“Sure,” Isabel says.  _ This is Isabel, _ she types out, _ Suzy just erased all her fingers. _

Dimitri replies barely a moment later with,  _ Why. _

_ Long story. Hilarious story, but long. _

Dimitri takes a moment to respond this time.  _...I’ll just ask Suzy when I next see her in person. Talk to you later. _

Isabel shows Suzy his response, and Suzy nods. “Okay, now you can just, uh… just leave it on the deck, I guess? It’d be pretty awkward for you to put it in my pocket, at least.”

“Yeah, I see what you mean.” Isabel puts the phone down, then crosses her arms thoughtfully. “...But hey, while your hands are out of commission, why don’t we take a break from sparring again and try practicing making spectral energy constructs? Like trying out those energy fingers Ed suggested.”

“...I dunno if I can manage that, though,” Suzy says, frowning at her hand. “I mean, I managed to do that loop by cheating it into approximately the right shape, and making it solid, but I can’t really do that here, can I?”

“So? It’s pretty much a perfect opportunity, far as I see it,” Isabel says. “You don’t have fingers, you need to make some fingers if you wanna pick up your pencil again any time soon. I’m not gonna pick it up for you, by the way.”

Suzy makes a face at Isabel, then sighs. “Fine, guess I don’t have much of a choice anyway. Let’s do this.”

 

* * *

 

Half an hour later, Suzy’s fingers aren’t back yet, and she hasn’t succeeded in making proper replacement fingers. She has, however, managed something shaped more like a mitten. It’s incredibly wispy and only remotely solid half the time, but she’s succeeded in moving the pencil to her lap so she counts it as a win.

(Admittedly, she did it by lifting the pencil high enough to clap her palms on either side of it and letting the ‘fingers’ dissipate, but shhhh don’t tell anyone.)

“Okay, now make it separate into—  _ separate, _ not dissipate, Suzy do you even know what those words mean?”

Suzy growls in frustration. “I’m  _ trying, _ okay? Spectral energy manipulation is all kinds of hecking hard.”

“Hey now, I know you’re frustrated, but there’s no need for that kinda language.” Isabel crosses her arms. “Look, let’s just try this again. Get some spectral energy flowing from your arm, will it into the right shape...”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it already,” Suzy grumbles, forming the mitten again. “Maybe I should just focus on keeping it solid, that seems like it’d be easier.”

Isabel shrugs. “Alright, whatever works for you. While you’re doing that, I’m gonna go grab us a snack. I’m getting pretty hungry.”

Suzy nods distractedly, already focused entirely on her construct.  _ Focus, focus, keep it solid… _

She lifts her other hand, pushing it against the ‘mitten’, and it feels almost like pushing through water but not quite. A little fuzzier, maybe. Suzy focuses on the fuzziness.  _ Make it stop being fuzzy. Resistance is good. Resistance means it’s working. Woah, now I’m starting to sound like the inverse of the Borg, not sure if that’s… _

With her thoughts derailed, the mitten turns back to pink smoke, and Suzy sighs. “Dangit, I can’t focus right. Why can’t I focus right?”

“Maybe because you’re focusing too much on focusing?” Ed suggests, and Suzy looks over at him curiously. “I mean, it doesn’t take that much effort for me ‘n Izzy to do stuff like this—” He forms a top hat and monocle in demonstration— “so I get the feeling you’re overthinking things. It’s more like… feeling things out, than thinking about them, y’know?”

“I  _ don’t _ know, though,” Suzy says. “That’s the problem. If I can’t understand how to do something, how’m I supposed to do it?”

“Definitely overthinking things, then,” Ed says, lazing onto his back. “Isaac has the same problem. He thinks about everything way too much, and it gets in the way of what’s actually there. I mean, he  _ can _ make things, but he’s been at this for what, two years? And his constructs are still all wispy.”

Suzy gives him a tired look. “So, what are you saying? That I’m not gonna get any better unless I completely change my worldview?”

Ed stares back at her for a moment, unreadable as always, then shrugs and looks away. “I dunno, it’s just another thing to think about. You’re doing plenty of that already, right? And it might get your mind off your fingers long enough to keep them solid.”

“How’s that supposed to make any sense?” Suzy asks, frustrated.

“It’s not.”

Suzy wait for a moment, seeing if Ed’s going to elaborate on that, before sighing and looking back at her hands.  _ ‘You’re overthinking things,’ he says. Hah. Doesn’t he know? I am literally always thinking about everything I do. How else am I supposed to figure anything out? It’s my  _ job. _ Well, I mean… hobby, I guess? I’m not exactly being paid… _

She shakes her head.  _ But that’s beside the point! I gotta figure out how to form new fingers. Maybe even before Isabel gets back! Wouldn’t that be something. _

_...Ugh, fingers. I miss having fingers. Why did I decide to start with my fingers, of all things? _ she wonders, eyes slipping shut. She resists the urge to scratch her nose, on account of not having enough fingers.  _ Oh dear, sweet fingers, I’ll never take you for granted again. _

The itch persists, making her twitch her nose before finally she grows frustrated and automatically reaches up to scratch it. There’s the odd sensation of her nose getting scratched without the accompanying feeling in her fingers, and then Suzy’s eyes snap open again.

“...Huh.” Attached to her hand, in place of ordinary fingers, are a set of smoky appendages. They’re wispy, wavering a little in the breeze, but when Suzy wills them to move they curl and uncurl accordingly.

Suzy inhales in preparation to announce her success, and right on cue Isabel slams the door open. “What’s up guys, someone ordered pizza and I got us a few slices!”

With a yelp, Suzy jumps a few inches in the air and lands on her butt. “Geez, Isabel, try being a little quieter next time,” she grumbles, rubbing at the back of her head where it hit the wall. “Some of us are trying to make temporary replacement— oh.”

Isabel laughs sheepishly. “Sorry, Suzy, I got excited. I’ll make sure to save you a piece for when your fingers get back.”

“Um, there’s, no need,” Suzy says, sitting up and holding up her re-fingered hands. “You seem to have startled my fingers back into existence. Which kinda sucks, ‘cause I  _ just _ managed some replacement ones...”

“Oh, you did?” Isabel asks, plopping herself down in front of Suzy with the plate of pizza slices she’s been holding the entire time. “Let’s see it, then.”

“No, see, that’s the thing.” Suzy wiggles her fingers at Isabel. “I can’t. My  _ actual _ fingers are in the way now.”

Isabel blinks. “Oh, yeah, I can see how that would be a problem. Maybe you should erase them again?”

“No,” Suzy immediately responds. “I’ve gained a new appreciation for my fingers, and I’d rather keep them.”

“Suit yourself,” Isabel says with a shrug, picking up one of the pizza slices. She nudges the plate towards Suzy. “Here, you can have one. You too, Ed!”

Ed looks up from where he sits utterly engrossed in watching the activity of an anthill, and perks up. “Oh, sweet!”

 

* * *

 

“Round Fourty-Seven Slash Thirty-Six! Guess who won this time? I’ll give you a hint: not Suzy!”

Suzy groans, rolling onto her back and sitting up to glare at Ed. “Rub salt in the wound, why don’t you. Is this really necessary?”

Ed grins widely, putting the finishing touches on a weird hat made of ink he’s drawn on his head. “Sure it is! Builds character, y’know?”

Suzy just grumbles wordlessly and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Why do I have to deal with this...”

“Because you want to for some reason?” Isabel suggests, crouching next to Suzy. “I mean, you can leave at any time.”

“But I don’t want toooooo,” Suzy whines, flopping back onto the grass with her arms over her eyes. “I just want Ed to stop making sarcastic comments every time I lose.”

Isabel nods sagely, then stands up and calls out to Ed, “You hear that, Ed? Suzy wants you to stop making sarcastic comments every time I beat her!”

“Tough luck, buddy!” Ed calls back. “I gotta entertain myself too!”

Isabel stuffs her hands back in her pockets and looks back at Suzy with an amused look. “Well, you heard him.”

Suzy just lets out a wordless whine. After a moment, though, she abruptly sits up. “Actually, what time is it? I feel like I’ve been getting beaten up by you for like, a week now.”

Isabel flips her phone open. “It’s two-thirty. You wanna call it quits now?”

Suzy thinks it over for a moment, then nods and stands up. “I’ve got enough bruises to last me a lifetime,” she says, stretching and cracking her back with a wince. “Is it cool if I stick around a little longer, though?”

“Oh, sure, stay as long as you like!” Isabel replies, walking with Suzy back to the deck. “I mean, you might wanna get going around three ‘cause that’s when afternoon practice starts, but until then—”

“Yeah, I gotcha,” Suzy interrupts. She sits down heavily on the edge of the deck, digging around her bag in search of her notebook. She tugs it out, grabbing her pencil as well and flipping to a new page to start writing. “I was thinking I might write down some notes on the traffic dragon, actually, and maybe see if you know any more about some other spirits I’ve seen around.”

Isabel gives Suzy a curious look, sitting down next to her. “You’ve been taking notes on spirits?”

“Yeah! Admittedly, it started out as kinda a way to feel like I was actually doing something about all the things I was suddenly seeing,” Suzy says, twirling a lock of hair around her finger, “But now it’s kinda like, I dunno, birdwatching? A fun little hobby to do when I’m bored.”

Isabel hums thoughtfully, leaning over. “Can I see the things you’ve already written down? I don’t really make a hobby out of it, but I know stuff about some of the more common spirits around.”

Automatically, Suzy turns her notebook away from Isabel, despite the fact that the page she’s on is blank. After a moment, though, she shrugs. “Sure, I guess. I gotta update some of the terminology anyway.”

Isabel pumps her fists. “Awesome!”

Suzy flips through the notebook, turning so Isabel can’t see what’s on the pages, before finally settling on one of the most common spirits she’s seen around. “Here, d’you know what these things are?” she asks, showing Isabel the page.

Isabel looks at it, curious, then lights up. “Oh, yeah, those are Doctopi! They’re like, super common.”

Suzy hums thoughtfully, quickly jotting down the name. “Is it normal for different spirits of the same… species? To have different colors of energy?”

“I guess?” Isabel says, resting a hand on her chin thoughtfully. “I guess it depends on the kind of spirit. Doctopi come in all sorts of colors, though.”

Suzy nods thoughtfully, scribbling that down in a corner.  _ Maybe I should start a dedicated notebook for this stuff, _ she muses. “Why’re they called Doctopi? Do they heal things or something?”

“Oh, no,” Isabel says, waving that off, “They eat pain. Far as I know, actual healing powers are super rare.”

Suzy nods in understanding. “Well, painkillers are related to healing, right? So the name still fits. There anything else?”

Isabel thinks for a moment, then shakes her head. “Nah, they’re pretty boring otherwise. Very squishy though!”

Suzy nods slowly, then flips to another page. “How about this thing?”

“Oh, that’s...”

 

* * *

 

“...the whole pizza! Right out the window!”

Isabel has tears streaming down her face, clutching at her sides as she fights to keep her balance against the force of her laughter. “So yeah,” Suzy continues, “since then I’ve learned Mr. Garcia is  _ super _ easy to blackmail. And he even thinks  _ he’s _ the one orchestrating it, like a  _ bribe _ or whatever! He’ll do almost anything for me if I phrase it right, just because I’m in charge of the newspaper.”

“Ahahahaaaa! Oh wow,” Isabel says, wiping at her eye with a grin on her face. “Wow, the way you tell that, it’s almost enough to make me forgive you for that!”

Suzy blinks. “Eh? What do you— oh no, are you gonna punch me now?”

Isabel laughs again. “No, no, not now, I’ve already beaten you up enough already. Besides, you’re just telling me something you did in the past. And it’s not like you can get away with blackmailing a  _ teacher _ for anything serious, can you?”

“N-no, of course I can’t! That’d be way too difficult.” Suzy laughs nervously.  _ No need to tell her about the time with the single-night gang war. _ She quickly grabs her notebook, previously left forgotten between them, and holds it up almost like a shield. “A-anyway, we’re getting a little off topic! I was just about to write down what I remember of the traffic dragon.”

“Oh! Right, yes, that.” Isabel starts to get up. “I’d almost forgotten about that, I better grab the stop sign.”

Suzy blinks, looking up from where she’s sketching out the dragon. “Hm? How come?”

“Well, I mentioned we archive most of the tools we get, right?” Isabel says, stepping just inside to grab the sign from where she’d left it leaned against the wall.

Suzy nods slowly. “I… kinda remember mentioning something about that, yeah.”

Isabel nods back, returning with the sign over her shoulder. “So, this thing’s probably gonna get archived too, unless— hey, did you happen to see what color spectral energy it had?”

“Oh, it had… um...” Suzy frowns in thought. “...I dunno, if I did see what color it was I don’t remember it. Is that bad?”

Isabel sighs, then shakes her head and smiles again. “Nah, it’s fine. We like to have at least that on record, in case someone with the right color energy suddenly wants slash needs a new tool, but it’s not really a disaster if a few don’t have the energy on record.”

“Oh, I see,” Suzy says, finishing up the drawing and moving onto the notes on the dragon’s abilities. “Still, I could’ve—”

“—Really, it’s fine,” Isabel assures. “Some spirits just don’t let off a lot of energy. Spectrals too. Kinda depends on a bunch of weird factors no one really understands.”

Suzy laughs, adding a little doodle of a stop sign beside the note mentioning the dragon being tooled. “Well, I’d better get going. Seeya later!”

“Yeah, bye!” Isabel says, waving. Suzy waves back, letting drop once she’s in the grass and making her way back to the driveway. Behind her, she hears Grandpa—  _ Francisco, dangit,  _ that guy’s voice saying something presumably to Isabel.

Suzy glances back just in time to see Isabel stick her tongue out at her grandpa and narrowly miss hitting him in the face with the stop sign as she turns to go back inside. Suzy snickers, hand shooting up to cover her mouth even though she knows no one’s gonna hear her.

As Suzy finally leaves the grass and hops onto the driveway, a pair of ominous red eyes loom from the shadows of the trees.

“She’s taking notes on the spirits she sees,” Nin comments to herself.

“Yeah?” Nin responds, lounging on a nearby branch. “We already know that, dumbface, why’re you repeating something we already heard?”

Nin gives Nin an annoyed look. “I’m just making sure it’s clear just what we’re supposed to be worrying about, dumberface. She might have seen us!”

Nin twists around to hang from a branch between Nin and Nin, crossing her arms. “Uh, no, we’re way too fast and sneaky for that! And we were only out in sight for what, few seconds? What’re the chances she’d’ve caught us right during that moment?”

Nin and Nin glance at each other, one eyebrow raised on each of them, before staring incredulously up at the third Nin. “...Ah, shoot, I just jinxed it, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” one Nin says.

“Yeah, you did,” the other Nin says. “Good going, dumbestface.”

Nin— the Nin hanging from a branch, that is— sticks out her tongue indignantly, then flips upright again and crosses her arms. “Well, alright, let’s say she did see us and included us in her notebook. What’re we gonna do about that?”

The lower Nins glance around thoughtfully. “...Well, we gotta remove the page that has us written on it, obviously.”

“Well,  _ duh, _ ” the other Nins chorus, and the lower one continues. “But how’re we supposed to do  _ that? _ We’re nowhere near powerful enough to poltergeist, remember?”

Nin hums thoughtfully. “What if we went all grudge-y? That might make us powerful enough...”

“Yeah, and then we’d forget what we were trying to do in the first place and go on a rampage until some spectral kills us,” the top Nin says. “No, we need some other plan. We need… outside help. Either a poltergeist, or a friendly spectral.”

“We shouldn’t get any humans involved in this,” Nin says, dropping down to the same level as the other two. “If we can somehow contact Forge...”

“No, too risky,” one of the other Nins says, shaking her head. “The kid he’s possessing doesn’t know about any of this, remember? What if he manages to regain control? And besides that, this kinda task requires subterfuge. Forge is about as stealthy as a brick wall.”

“Then how?” Nin asks. “Doormy’s as much of a poltergeist as we are, and if any other spirits who know about us are poltergeists, they sure don’t care enough to do us a favour.”

Another Nin pops her head out from behind the tree trunk. “What about that kid Doormy’s been—”

“No, he’s all about justice and stuff, he wouldn’t wanna go around someone’s back like that,” Nin interrupts. “I say we try Forge—”

Another Nin pops into existence. “No, we should find a poltergeist!”

With every new conflicting opinion, another voice joins the argument, the space in the tree growing more and more crowded. “Wait, wait, it’s too risky to let anyone know, maybe we should try and poltergeist ourself!”

“Is becoming a grudge really that risky?”

“Maybe we’re just worrying over nothing—”

“How about!” one Nin yells over the ruckus, silencing the rest of the Nins and attracting all their eyes to her. “How about we go talk to Doorman about this?”

“Oh, yeah, good idea,” one Nin agrees, a chorus of nods going through the crowd.

“Yeah, yeah, we could use a fresh set of ears,” another says as Nins start to poof out of existence. “Or, well, however that guy hears. You know what I mean.”

A moment later, the branches are empty of all but one of the Nins. She sighs, relieved to have that mess cleared up, and then darkness pools around her, and in a blur she begins to make her way back to the Slanted Manse.


	14. Chapter 14

“I just can’t get over the cat!”

When Nin returns to the Slanted Manse, it’s to the sound of Isaac complaining to Doorman. Nin sighs, mentally filing away the next thirty minutes— at least— to be spent waiting for the kid to quit holding Doormy up. That out of the way, she hops through a window and scurries along the rafters to survey the situation.

Isaac is splayed across the armrests of a chair, gesturing wildly with characteristic annoyance. “I mean seriously, whose immediate response to getting caught petting a cat is to _throw the cat_ _and run?!_ ”

“Well, that girl, clearly,” Doorman responds, sounding mildly exasperated. “You’ve gone over this several times already, is there nothing else you have to say?”

“No!” Isaac yells, throwing his arms up, then pauses. “Well, I mean, yeah, but— it’s just weird, okay? That girl’s weird, and maybe a little creepy.”

“Be that as it may,” Doorman says, folding his arms behind his back, “surely there is something else you can talk about? How things have been going with your school friends, for instance?”

Isaac crosses his arms and grunts, glaring into the backrest of his chair for a moment before replying. “...It’s been okay, I guess. Me and Max did some pretty cool combos last fight, but we haven’t been hanging out all that much.”

“Max and I,” Doorman corrects, earning another annoyed grunt. “Perhaps that is something else you should be doing, instead of marinating yourself in bitterness down here? I am not so desperate for companionship that you have to spend such a lovely day inside.”

“I  _ would, _ ” Isaac says, rolling onto his front so his chest is over the armrest with his arms dangling down to the floor, “but I’m pretty sure he’s like, hanging out with Johnny or whatever. They sure seemed to be having fun when I saw them, at least.”

Doorman sighs, resting a hand on his face… door knob… keyhole… thing. “And you didn’t even make an effort to join them, I presume?” Doorman doesn’t even need the vague grunt from Isaac to know the answer. “Young Master, it seems you’re once again responsible for your own downfall. Please, isn’t there anyone else you could spend your time with, lest you end up falling into a rut again?”

“Well, Isabel and Ed are attached at the hip, and all they really care about is  _ fighting _ anyway,” Isaac starts, sitting up and ticking fingers off, “Max, you already know, Dimitri still blames me for, well...”

“And the newest spectral?” Doorman asks. “What did you say her name was, Miss...”

“Suzy,” Isaac says. “And I already mentioned, she’s weird, and creepy, and she threw a cat at me!”

“Yes, I believe you’ve mentioned,” Doorman says. “But surely, judging someone by a single incident when they were startled is unfair, is it not? You could at least give her a chance.”

“... _ And _ she’s friends with Dimitri,” Isaac adds, half muttering, slumping deeper into the chair. “By now, he’s probably told her all about what happened, and now  _ she’ll _ blame me for it too. Just like  _ everyone else. _ ”

“You can’t know unless you give it a try,” Doorman begins. Nin takes a step closer, placing her weight on a new beam. She finds it to be unexpectedly slick, most likely due to it retaining dampness from whenever the last time it rained was. Whatever the reason, the end result is Nin slipping from the rafters and landing with an impressive thud between the Doorman and Isaac.

Doorman looks quite like he would have just blinked in surprise, were it not for the fact that he doesn’t have eyes. “Nin. You’re back already?”

“Yeah, Doormy, don’t sound so surprised,” Nin mutters, pulling herself to her feet. Isaac gives her a curious look, which she ignores as she turns to face the Doorman. “We might have a bit of a situation.”

Doorman tilts his head. “Oh? Normally you come to me saying there  _ was _ a situation, but you already dealt with it. What’s different this time?”

“What’s different is I can’t deal with this one myself,” Nin says, crossing her arms. “I’d need a poltergeist or a spectral, and I couldn’t decide on how to go about it myself.”

“What happened?” Isaac asks, leaning forward curiously. Nin glances up, like she’d forgotten he was there, before looking down.

“That new spectral girl, the pink one—”

“Suzy?” Isaac asks.

“—Sure, if that’s her name,” another Nin responds from Isaac’s armrest, earning a startled twitch from him. “Anyway, she seems to have taken up a new hobby of writing down notes on every spirit she sees, and she  _ might _ have seen me.”

Doorman straightens quickly. “How recently?”

“Uh, few days ago?” Floor-Nin replies, shrugging. “Same day she threw the cat. Cats. However many the thing counts as. I would’ve mentioned it then, but at the time I didn’t know what she was up to. I just figured she was taking a walk.”

Doorman nods pensively, bringing a hand to his chin. “This is… troubling news. Do you have any ideas?”

“Well, see,” Chair-Nin says, “We were thinking we’d have to get rid of the page with us on it— I mean, assuming it’s there. But I’m not exactly the strongest spirit around, so I can’t really poltergeist it to shreds or anything.”

“I see...” Doorman goes silent for a moment, thinking, before he lifts his head to look at Isaac. “Young Master—”

“You think I should help out with this?” Isaac guesses, and when Doorman nods he sits back and crosses his arms. “I dunno, isn’t messing with other people’s stuff kinda wrong?”

Doorman nods, looking away. “True, but our continued secrecy is of top priority. Should that information fall into the wrong hands...”

“Okay, but is it really so disastrous if she just… knows Nin exists? Just as another one of the spirits living in Mayview?” Isaac gives Chair-Nin a skeptical look. “There’s nothing connecting you to this place, is there?”

Chair-Nin shakes her head slowly, giving Isaac an uncertain look. “...No, I don’t think so, but still. It’s a potential security breach. Couldn’t we at least confirm whether or not she  _ does _ have notes on me, then work from there?”

For a moment, they just look at each other, a battle of wills. Finally, Isaac sighs and looks away. “Fine, I’ll see if I can find the page. But how am I supposed to know where she is?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Floor-Nin says, perking up. “She was just leaving Old Man Guerra’s house last I saw her, and that wasn’t very long ago. I’m sure I could find her again and lead you to her, easy.”

Isaac nods, sliding off the chair and grabbing his backpack. “Well, guess we’d better get going then. I’m just gonna see if I can have a look through her notes though, okay? I’m not gonna mess with them or anything.”

“Yeah, whatever you want, you goody-two-shoes,” Chair-Nin says, hopping onto Isaac’s shoulder as Floor-Nin vanishes in a puff of smoke. “Seeya later, Doormy.”

“Do be careful, you two,” Doorman replies, giving a short wave. “I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah, same to you,” Isaac says, stepping out the door and shutting it behind him.

 

* * *

 

“You find her?” Isaac asks as Nin’s eyes appear in the shadows of a tree. He’s leaned against a railing, not too high up the hill, but high enough to easily look over the trees at the other side of the lake.

“Yeah,” Nin says, glancing around nervously. “She’s down by the lake, for some reason. I think she’s watching the giant koi. Dunno why she’d be doing it by the lake, though, when they’re all the way up there...”

Isaac gives Nin a dry look, crossing his arms. “‘By the lake’ isn’t very specific, you know.”

“Well it’s the best I can do!” Nin complains. “There aren’t really any distinctive landmarks around where she is.”

Isaac sighs. “Well, fine, can you lead me to her?”

“Yeah, but I’m not gonna take you all the way,” Nin says, turning away. “I don’t wanna get seen again. This way!”

Nin takes off through the trees, and it’s all Isaac can do to keep up even when she pauses and waits for him at street corners. Eventually, though, she pauses over a trail leading into the trees. “You can find your way from here, right?”

Isaac gives her an irritated look, energy flaring around his shoulders. “I mean, assuming she’s down that trail? Yeah, probably. Are you leaving?”

“Nah, I’ll be around,” Nin says, waving her hand around flippantly, “I just wanna keep my distance a little. You’re basically gonna be on your own though.”

Isaac sighs. “Thought so. Well, at least she won’t have another cat to throw at me...”

That thought in mind, Isaac steps onto the trail and gets walking. It takes him a few minutes to reach the end of the trail. Or, well, not exactly the end per-se. The trail goes on a great deal further, as far as Isaac can tell, but he finds Suzy sitting in a small clearing just off the trail, right at the shore of the lake.

She has a cat, of course.  _ Because nothing’s ever easy. _

It’s a small, scruffy cat, grey and white fur, purring loud enough for Isaac to hear it clearly even from the trail as Suzy scratches it behind the ear with one hand. Not a spirit cat, he thinks. Whether or not it changes anything, he doesn’t know.

Swallowing his apprehensions, Isaac steps off the trail and walks over to stand behind Suzy. She’s got a pair of binoculars in the hand she’s not using to pet the cat, looking nearly straight up, and when Isaac follows her gaze he finds a line of huge orange fish swimming leisurely through the sky.  _ Oh, _ he thinks,  _ it’s just that? _

On a whim, Isaac leans over to peer down the other end of the binoculars. “What are you doing?”

Suzy yelps, dropping her binoculars with a jolt and startling the cat from her lap. “Ack! What’re— I—uh—”

Isaac raises an eyebrow, amused. “Jumpy, much? I was just wondering what you were doing.”

“I’m not— y-you just startled me! Is all!” Suzy stutters out, quickly retrieving her binoculars. Her hand passes over the notebook by her side, left open to a page showing a messy sketch of a fish and some unreadable chicken scratch. “What are  _ you _ doing out here?”

Isaac blinks, looking up from the notebook. “Hey, I asked first.”

Suzy huffs, narrowing her eyes and looking back up at the fish. “Spirit-watching,” she says, raising the binoculars to her eyes again. “It’s like birdwatching, but with less birds.”

Isaac glances between her and the fish, then sits down and takes off his backpack. “So, you’re looking at spirits and writing stuff down about them?” he asks, picking up Suzy’s notebook to see if a closer look would help him understand her handwriting.

“Yeah, I— Hey! ” Suzy swipes her notebook back, shooting Isaac a fierce glare. “That’s  _ my _ notebook!”

“Sorry!” Isaac yelps, raising his hands defensively. “I just wanted a better look at what you’ve written already— That page is about the bi-weekly koi migration, isn’t it?”

Suzy blinks, glancing at the page, the giant koi in the sky, and finally to Isaac with a curious glint in her eye. “Migration?”

“Yeah, though honestly it’s not much of a migration what with the barrier,” Isaac says, relaxing slightly. “Most of the time, those fish hang out in the ground on one side of Mayview, but twice a week they go up into the air to switch which side they’re on.”

Suzy hums in interest, already jotting down notes. “Barrier, you say? I think Dee mentioned something about that when he explained all this yesterday, but he didn’t really go into any detail. Could you elaborate?”

Isaac freezes, feeling his throat tighten at the mention of Dimitri.  _ Oh, right. They’re in the same club, of course he’d be the one to give her the rundown. _

After a moment of silence, Suzy glances up to find Isaac staring off to the side with an odd look on his face. “...Isaac? Something wrong?” she asks, jolting Isaac out of his reverie.

“I-it’s nothing,” Isaac says quickly, looking back at her. A wet nose butts against his hand, signalling the return of the cat, and automatically he starts petting it as it curls up in his lap. “I just, uh, got distracted. What were you saying?”

“The barrier you mentioned,” Suzy says, waving her pencil through the air. “I know it’s apparently impossible for spectrals to leave Mayview because of it, but that’s about all I know. Why’s it there, what  _ can _ go through it, et cetera?”

“Oh, right!” Isaac says, straightening his back. “Well, I don’t really know why it’s there— someone put it there, I guess? But I dunno why they’d want to. Spectrals and spirits can’t go through it, normal people and ghosts pass through just fine. And possessed objects, like tools.”

Suzy nods slowly, flipping back through the notebook. Isaac glances down at the pages at just the right time to catch sight of something familiar, and quick as a flash his hand shoots out to stop Suzy. “Wait, wait, hang on— What was that?”

Suzy glances at him, puzzled. “What was what?”

“One of the pages, I thought I saw something,” Isaac explains, retrieving his arm but not leaning back out of Suzy’s space. “Go back— No, further, further— Ah, here!”

The handwriting is just as illegible as on the other pages, but Isaac doesn’t need to read anything to recognize the silhouette sketched off to the side. Isaac settles back, biting worriedly at his thumbnail.  _ Okay, so she did see Nin. That changes things. _

Meanwhile, Suzy gives him a confused look. “Isaac? What’s this about?”

Isaac blinks, then quickly shakes his head. “Oh, uh, nevermind, it’s nothing. I just thought it looked familiar, is all.”

Suzy gives him a suspicious look, but returns to flipping through the book. “Right, whatever you say. Where was I…?”

“The barrier,” Isaac supplies.

“Ah, right!” Suzy perk up, flipping quickly to a dense page lacking any drawings. “Right, doesn’t let spirits or spectrals through, does let ghosts and tools… there anything else? Some way to get through, for instance?”

“Oh, yeah, there used to be,” Isaac says. “There was the Ghost Train, which had the ability to warp things out of its path, including the barrier.”

“Hm. You’re using past tense,” Suzy notes, “did something happen to it?”

“Yeah. About a month ago, it got destroyed, and it’s gonna be a while before it can regenerate,” Isaac says.

Suzy hums. “How long is ‘a while’? You’re gonna have to be a little more specific.”

“Um, well...” Isaac shifts uneasily, looking away. The cat in his lap meows, lifting its head to look around for the answer to why it’s no longer getting petted. “Well, it’s hard to say for certain, so maybe… a few months… to several years?”

For a moment, Isaac braces himself for some kind of distressed or outraged reaction to the news. Most people would react that way to the news that they’re trapped semi-indefinitely inside their town. When several moments pass with no such reaction, however, he chances a look at Suzy.

She’s chewing the end of her pencil thoughtfully. “Well,” she muses at long last, “that could be a little inconvenient if it takes that long.”

“Only a little?” Isaac asks, confused and a little relieved.  _ I don’t care if I’m the one with the cat right now, she’d find some way to throw it at me. _

“Well, ‘s not like I leave town like, ever,” Suzy explains, jotting something down, “so it’ll only really matter if it lasts until like, college.”

Isaac relaxes more fully, lifting one hand to resume scratching the cat behind the ears. “I guess that’s one way to look at it,” he muses. “But wow, you never leave town? Not even for vacations?”

“Nah, my parents don’t really have time for that,” Suzy says, flipping her notebook shut and turning towards Isaac with a polite smile. “And that’s about all I’m gonna say about that. C’mere, Rascal!”

The cat— Rascal, Isaac guesses— immediately leaps from his lap to sniff eagerly at Suzy’s outstretched hand. The cat tries to climb into Suzy’s lap, but is thwarted by her standing up. Rascal settles for letting her pick him up.

“Is that your cat?” Isaac asks, reaching for his backpack as Suzy stuffs her binoculars in her bag one-handedly.

“No, he’s a stray,” Suzy replies. “I just call him Rascal because, well, it just seems to fit, y’know?”

Isaac just nods, watching as Suzy stands fully and goes to leave. “Well,” she says, turning away with a wave, “It was nice talking to you! Seeya around!”

“Yeah,” Isaac agrees, giving a short wave and letting it drop as Suzy disappears from sight— heading further down the trail, he notes, not back the way he came.

For a long moment, he just stands there, alone with only the wind in the trees to speak with him. Then, finally, a glint of red in the trees brings his attention upward.

“So, she definitely saw me,” Nin says, staring off in the direction Suzy went.

“Yeah, no doubt about it,” Isaac agrees. “I still don’t want to mess with her stuff, though. It’s not like she has anything more than a vague silhouette, anyway, and her handwriting is practically a layer of encryption on its own anyway.”

Nin snorts in amusement, another pair of eyes appearing to give the first one a reproachful look. “Still,” the new Nin says, “we can’t take any risks. If you’re not gonna do it, we’ll just find another way. Forge, for instance.”

Isaac grimaces. “I  _ also _ still think it’s wrong to keep letting that guy forcibly take control of an unassuming kid just to do your dirty work,” he says, eyebrow twitching.

“Oh, so you’ll do it?” Nin asks, beaming.

“I never said that!” Isaac yells, thunder crackling in a storm around his shoulders. He stops, takes a deep breath, and more calmly continues, “Look, I just don’t want you taking advantage of Johnny like that. Find some poltergeist willing to do a favour, maybe, or let him into the whole secret so he can do it  _ without _ getting another gaping hole in his memory.”

“Fine, geez,” Nin huffs. “Honestly, you’re not even that close to the kid, why do you care?”

Isaac just glares at her, the miniature thundercloud that had been fading away swirling back into strength, thicker than before. Nin stares back for a moment, then looks away. “Ah, right. Gotcha. Well, you take care.”

With that, Nin vanishes from the trees, taking the shadows with her. Isaac glares at the spot she just left for a moment longer, letting the cloud disperse, before turning to leave as well.

 

* * *

 

“So… do you know any poltergeists?” Nin asks, arms crossed as she peers out at the house she’s perched in front of.

“What? No,” Nin replies, scoffing from another branch. “Do you?”

“Well, no, that’s why I’m asking,” the first Nin quips. “How’re we supposed to manage this plan if we can’t even finish step one?”

The first Nin bristles. “Hey,  _ you’re _ the one who thought it up.”

“You did too!” The second Nin snipes. “Honestly, why do I even put up with you?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the first Nin says, bouncing to her feet and resting her paws on her hips. “Who was it that got us into this mess in the first place?”

“You!”

“You did too!”

“Guys, guys, sh!” a third Nin cuts in, pressing her paws on the other two Nin’s mouths. “She’s gonna hear you!”

The arguing Nins immediately fall into fearful silence, staring wide-eyed at the windows. When nothing moves in the darkness beyond, they all breath a sigh of relief. “Honestly,” the new Nin says, lowering her paws to her sides, “What are we even doing here? Don’t we have better things to do than stalking tweenaged spectrals?”

The first Nin crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? Like what?”

“I dunno,  _ looking for a poltergeist?” _ The third Nin crosses her arms right back. “The only thing we’re getting done here is risking even more of our secrecy.”

“Yeah, at this rate we’re just gonna waste the entire night away,” the first Nin agrees.

“Geez, now you’re ganging up on me?” the second Nin grumbles, then grins. “Well, two can play at that game!”

Another two Nins poof into existence on either side of her, arms crossed with stern expressions. “What do you two think?” Nin #2 asks, smirking. “Should we keep watching this kid?”

“Sounds good to me,” the Nin to her right says, looking smug as Nins #1 and #3 glare.

The Nin to her left doesn’t look so certain. “Ehhh… I dunno, are you sure we couldn’t just go looking for a poltergeist? We have plenty of contacts, it couldn’t go be any more of a waste than spending the entire night staking out a house.”

Nin #2 glares at her. “Traitor.”

Nins #1 and #3, on the other hand, look relieved. “Good to have you on the team,” #3 says, waving Left Nin over to her side before fixing a confident smirk on Nin #2. “So, looks like it’s two on three. You still gonna argue in favour of us stalking this kid?”

Nin #2 glares at her, before scoffing and turning away. “Fine, whatever. You win. Happy now?”

“I dunno, are you?” Nin #1 asks, the other three Nins vanishing into smoke around her and Nin #2. Nin #2 just gives her a dry look and vanishes as well, leaving just one Nin left in the tree.

She stretches, gratefully rolling her shoulders with a sigh. “Glad we got that cleared up,” she says, before curling the shadows around her and darting into the night.

 

* * *

 

It feels like the weekend took way longer to arrive than it should have, Suzy finds, like the week had several more nameless days crammed into it than should reasonably be there. This feeling is, of course, immediately brushed off as irrelevant and promptly forgotten as she goes about preparing for the day.

Something that does get more than a moment’s consideration, on the other hand, is the issue of Collin. She’s ignored it the past few days, but the fact remains that there are no secrets between the Journalism Club, and Collin refuses to believe  _ this _ non-secret without proof. She ends up glaring at the shower wall as she washes her hair, trying to puzzle out a way to prove it to him.  _ Spectral energy? No, normal people can’t see that. I suppose I could use it to lift my pencil, but I’m not nearly good enough at it yet to manage that. I could erase something, but I dunno if normal people can be affected by that. I dunno if they can even see that things have been erased, actually. I should really test that... _

It’s only as she’s drying herself off that she remembers.  _ Oh yeah, didn’t Dee say something about Max? Like… Max has a poltergeist. _ She hums idly as she wraps a towel around herself.  _ Guess I should go pay him a visit. Can’t hurt. _

She gets all the way through dressing herself and going out the door before it occurs to her that she has no idea where Maxwell Puckett actually lives. It’d be embarrassing to stride right out the door and immediately turn back inside, though, so she decides to just suck it up and hope she stumbles upon him at some point.

Thirty minutes into aimless wandering and note-taking, Suzy’s stomach grumbles to remind her she forgot to have breakfast. She glares down at it for moment before heaving a sigh and snapping her notebook shut, and then she turns to find somewhere to eat.

There’s a convenience store nearby, she remembers. The one that opened last month. She hasn’t had the opportunity to go there yet, so she doesn’t have an idea of the service, but she figures it’s as good a place as any to grab a snack.

The only people there when she comes in are the cashier— a tall brown-haired man with glasses— and a small girl who she’s guessing is his daughter (though why he’d have his daughter with him is anyone’s guess.) They barely glance up when she comes in, too engrossed with some kind of word search, and Suzy is perfectly fine with that arrangement.

It’s as she’s perusing the chip aisle that Suzy becomes aware of the feeling of someone staring at her. She glances around, frowning when she finds the store just as empty as when she came in, and then on a whim she lifts her head to look at the ceiling.

Her eyes meet the face of a young boy half-phased through the ceiling, a boy with white and blue striped pajamas and a pair of eyes round as saucers. The boy startles when Suzy looks at him, moving aside and glancing at the spot he’d just been to see if there was something there, then looks back down at Suzy to find her eyes have followed him.

“Um...” The boy frets about for a moment, glancing around nervously, then looking back at Suzy with an uncertain look on his face. “Can you… see me?”

Suzy glances up and down the aisle real quick to make sure no one’s showed up suddenly, then slowly nods. The boy turns around again and mutters something under his breath— something along the lines of “Oh gosh oh geez what do I do,” if Suzy has to guess— before turning and fleeing back up into the ceiling. Suzy frowns at the spot he vanished into, before shrugging and returning the the chips.

She’s just picked out a bag and turned to head for the cash register when an odd thumping noise comes to her attention. The cashier and his daughter seem to notice it too, turning their heads towards the doorway behind them, and Suzy steps closer in an attempt to find out what it is.

The noise quickly grows louder and more distinct, now recognizable as the sound of something falling down a flight of stairs. This impression is confirmed when, moments later, a blur of black and brown comes rolling into view and crashes into the wall, resolving itself into a rather dazed Maxwell Puckett.

The cashier just raises an eyebrow at him. “Again, Max?”

Max just mutters something under his breath, peeling himself off the floor, then sharply narrows his eyes as he sees Suzy. In a flash, he’s leapt to his feet lunged towards the counter, making Suzy jump back when he points at her. “YOU!” he snaps.

“M-me?” Suzy stutters out, clutching her chips to her chest.

“What are you doing here?” Max demands. “How did you even find my house?!”

Suzy blinks, then turns her nose up imperiously. “Well  _ maybe _ I just forgot to have breakfast and noticed a convenience store nearby. Not everything is about you,  _ Maxwell.” _

Max fumes and opens his mouth to snap back at her, but before he can get anything out the cashier—  _ his dad?— _ rests a hand on his shoulder. “Another friend of yours, Maxwell?” he asks.

_ “No,” _ Max growls, brushing his dad’s hand of his shoulder. “She’s  _ anything but _ a friend. She’s more like an obnoxious gremlin that won’t stop trying to blackmail me.”

“It’s rude to talk about people who’re right in front of you,” Suzy says, chancing a step closer and placing the chips on the counter. “And excuse you,  _ you’re  _ a gremlin. I’m just a humble reporter, trying to make a living in this horrible world.”

“You’re the one making it horrible,” Max mutters.

“Now now, Max, be nice,” Max’s dad says, handing the chips back to Suzy. “Tell you what, miss gremlin, you can have this chips on the house. It’s my pleasure, serving my son’s friends.”

“You’re gonna start cutting into the budget if you keep doing that,” the girl in Dad Puckett’s lap finally pipes up, drowning out Max’s protests at Suzy being called his friend.

“Come now, Zoey, it’s just a few chips,” Max’s dad says. “What are you even doing going around knowing big words like that?”

Zoey remains supremely unimpressed. “This is the third time you’ve done this.”

The two of them continue back and forth like that, Dad Puckett cheerfully messing up Zoey’s hair and Zoey recoiling and trying to grab his arm, but Suzy ignores them in favour of looking back at Max. He glances over to her a moment later, glower still set in his features, and if anything it just grows deeper.

“So,” he asks, “Why  _ are _ you here?”

“Hey, I was being serious when I said I was just looking for a snack,” Suzy says, shrugging and pulling the bag of chips open. “Though I’ll admit I was hoping I’d run into you at some point. Didn’t think you lived in a convenience store, though. How’d that happen?”

“Dad has weird aspirations,” Max says, narrowing his eyes again. “What’d you need me for? More blackmail?”

“Oh I wish,” Suzy says, crunching down on a chip. “Unfortunately, you already know I’ve got my hands tied with regards to you,” she says around the mouthful.

“Then what are you here for?”

“Oh, you know,” Suzy says, waving a hand around vaguely and deliberately leaving a trail of spectral energy and hoping Max gets the hint. “Things.”

Max frowns at Suzy, eyes flickering this way and that as he decides what to do here, and then he sighs and pushes off from the counter. “Fine,” he says, making his way around. “Let’s take this outside.”

Suzy nods, trailing after Max as he walks out the sliding door and crosses the street. There, he leans against the railing and glares at Suzy. “So. What do you want.”

Suzy, for her part, remains entirely unfazed. “I heard you have a poltergeist living in your house,” she says as bluntly as possible. “I need to borrow it.”

Max looks surprised. “Huh? How’d you find out about that?”

“Dee told me,” Suzy says, then stuffs another handful of chips in her mouth. “Wha’, whash he wrong?”

“Dee? Oh, you mean Dimitri?” When Suzy nods, Max sighs and settles back against the railing. “Guess he would know, after that time with the truth worm. What the heck d’you need a poltergeist for, though?”

“Gotta convince Collin that ghosts are real.”

“...” Max looks incredulous. “...Why?”

“‘Cause then I can properly complain about things to him,” Suzy says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “I can’t whine about ghosts keeping me up all night if the person I’m whining to doesn’t think ghosts exist.”

“That’s...” Max rubs at the bridge of his nose and sighs, shaking his head. “That’s terrible logic, and there’s no way I’m gonna let you borrow Lefty just for that. I mean, I wasn’t gonna anyway, but now I’m extra not gonna.”

“What?! How come?” Suzy asks.

“Uh, because you’re a terror upon the earth and I want nothing to do with you?” Max suggests, crossing his arms. “I thought we established this.”

“Well, kinda, but not in so many words,” Suzy begrudgingly admits, then clasps her hands and tries to look pleading. “But please! This is really important! Can’t you just do me this one favour?”

“No.”

“Why?!”

Max glares at her. “Because I hate you.”

“And I hate you too, and I hate that I’m doing this, but please!” Suzy turns on the puppy-dog eyes. “I’ll owe you back!”

That seems to get Max’s attention, the frustrated glare making way for something thoughtful, and already Suzy regrets saying anything. Her stomach churns at the smug smirk that appears moments later, and it’s like there’s a race to see who can talk first— Suzy wanting to take it back, and Max with whatever dastardly plan he has in store to humiliate Suzy.

Max wins. “Well, if that’s the case, I could consider lending Lefty to you for a day,” he says, and Suzy bites back a curse. “Assuming he’s willing to do it, of course.”

“Wonderful,” Suzy growls into her chips. “So, what do I have to do to win your favour?”

“Hmm...” Max makes a show of thinking it over, amused by the increasingly frustrated expression growing on Suzy’s face. Then, finally, he folds his arms smugly. “Well, you could start by groveling on your hands and knees, begging for my forgiveness for everything you’ve done against me.”

“Please tell me you’re not serious,” Suzy grits out.

Max shrugs. “I might be. Nah, I think I’ve got a better idea. Come on, follow me.”

Suzy trails after Max as he heads back into the store, past his still-bickering family, and up the stairs he’d fallen down just minutes before. She raises her eyes in surprise at the ordinary living room they step into, and gives Max a curious look. “Wow, you’re trusting me inside your home? I thought you hated me too much for that.”

Max makes a face at her. “Believe me, I’d rather not. We’re not staying, anyway.”

Ignoring the curious look Suzy shoots him, Max motions for Suzy to stay where she is before wandering down the hall and pushing open the door at the end. “Hey, PJ, d’you know where Lefty went?” he asks, and Suzy inches closer to see if she can hear the entire conversation.

“No,” a meek voice replies, and it takes Suzy a moment to place it as the ghost boy she’d seen. “I think he was… going to meet with someone? It’s hard to tell. He’s not in the house, at least.”

“Great. Well, if you see him before I get back, tell him I want to talk to him,” Max says, before turning and shutting the door again. Suzy jumps back to where she was before, trying to look like she’s just admiring the photograph on the coffee table, only looking back up when Max pauses next to her.

“Hm?” She does her best to look clueless, even in the face of Max’s unrelenting skepticism. “Oh, are you done already?”

“Didn’t I tell you to stay where you were?” Max asks back, crossing his arms.

“Oh, is that what that was?” Suzy asks. “I thought you were petting an invisible cat.”

Max glares again, then sighs and brushes past. He grabs onto Suzy’s wrist almost as an afterthought, pulling her behind him as he heads back downstairs. “Whatever. Come on, we’re heading out again.”

Suzy twists her arm out of his grip and glares at the back of his head, picking up the pace down the stairs to get ahead of him. “Where are we going?”

“We’re going to the magical land of Candyland, where hopes and dreams reign supreme and everyone is happy,” Max deadpans, pausing by the no-longer-bickering Dad and Zoey to give his two cents on the crossword they’re doing before turning back to Suzy and walking backwards out the door. “Where do you  _ think?” _

“Uh, looking for your poltergeist?” Suzy guesses. When Max shakes his head, she mentally reaches around before she finds the other conclusion. “The thing you want in exchange for you doing this?”

_ “Yes,” _   Max says, like it’s so obvious. “What else?”

“I dunno, it could’ve been any number of things,” Suzy huffs, striding past Max with her nose in the air. “You still haven’t even told me what you want.”

“You’ll see.”

Suzy scoffs, glaring at the back of Max’s head when he picks up the pace to pull ahead of her. She responds by speeding up as well, and soon they’re both sprinting down the street in an attempt to outpace each other.

Max swerves abruptly down a side street, leaving Suzy in the dust for a moment as she backpedals and scrambles to follow after him. He runs across the street, vaults over a railing, and skids into the underbrush just as Suzy comes close to catching up.

He’s stopped at the bottom of a short incline, Suzy finds, his face smug as she gasps for breath with her hands on her knees. She glares back at him. “Is this,” she says, pausing for a breath before continuing, “Is this what you wanted from me? You wanted me to suffer for being out of shape?”

“No, but that is a plus.” Max turns to stare into the trees, then glances back up at Suzy. “Come on, it’s just a little further.”

Suzy grumbles something impolite under her breath, but nonetheless picks herself up and climbs over the railing to follow Max. He leads her a short distance into the increasingly thick underbrush, thankfully at a much less rapid pace, and soon enough they reach their destination.

It’s a big pile of rocks.  _ “This _ is what you wanted to show me?” Suzy asks incredulously as Max circles around to the other side of the clearing. “Your rock collection?”

“You’re looking at it from the wrong direction,” is all Max says before he steps  _ into _ the pile and just vanishes.

Suzy takes a deep breath, grits her teeth, and walks around the pile to find it’s not, in fact, a simple pile. It’s a portal of some sort, with a frame made of stacked rocks and emitting a purple-pink glow. Suzy stares at it for a long moment, considering whether or not to enter, before finally she sighs exasperatedly and steps forward.  _ What the heck. My life’s weird enough already. _

She finds Max waiting for her on the other side, arms crossed. “About time,” he says, voice dry. “Did you get lost or something?”

“Some people have concerns about walking into weird glowy portals, Maxwell,” Suzy says. “What did you bring me here for?”

Wordlessly, Max jabs his thumb behind him. Suzy follows it, and her brain stalls at the sight of cogs and hydraulics.

Slowly, ever so slowly, her gaze pans up. And up. Suzy doesn’t quite have the words to describe it, this strange tower made up of all the machinery you can imagine wrapped in clocks and chains and topped with— of all things— a sponge.

Suzy can barely form words. “What the heck  _ is _ this thing?” she asks.

Max leans a hand on it. “This is a Time Spirit,” he says, “And I need you to destroy it.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AIGHT I GOTTA LOT TO SAY SO LET'S BREAK IT UP
> 
> first of all, on april 1st i announced i'd be putting frosted on hold to turn it into a silent film! that idea naturally fell through, but you can still see the art i drew for it at (brushstrokesapocalyptic.tumblr.com/post/159088276354/)
> 
> second, have you ever wondered what some of the spirits appearing in frosted look like??? well wonder no longer! now not only can you grace your eyes with the GLORIOUS appearance of eraserhead, (brushstrokesapocalyptic.tumblr.com/post/159205735819/) you can also stare at the orange traffic dragon from chapter 12! (brushstrokesapocalyptic.tumblr.com/post/159240616689/) wow! what a deal!
> 
> finally, on a less artsy note, i've decided to change the update schedule to just thursdays. this may or may not be for the rest of the fic, but at least for now i've determined with the amount of rewriting i've had to do before posting, a biweekly schedule just isn't working for the moment. hopefully i'll be able to go back to monday/thursday, and thanks for reading!

Suzy blinks. “Say what?”

“Destroy it,” Max repeats. “I don’t care how you do it, it just has to—”

“No no no, I got that much. Destroy it, I can do that, probably,” Suzy says, waving him off. “It’s just… time spirit? What the heck is that supposed to mean?”

“You didn’t notice?” Max raises an eyebrow and crosses his arms. “Friday happened twice.”

“It did? I guess that explains why the week felt so long...” Suzy gives the bizarre contraption a thoughtful look, then glances back at Max. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

_ “Thursday _ happened twice too,” Max says, “and the second Friday was well on the way to turning into a  _ third _ before Isaac and Johnny managed to find this place.”

“I still don’t see the problem,” Suzy says, crossing her arms right back. “Sounds like it just means there’ll be an extra long weekend.”

“And an extra long week in general,” Max points out. Suzy still looks sceptical, and he sighs. “Suzy. Ten school days in a row. Every week.”

Suzy whips out her pencil and goes for the contraption. “Alright that’s it you’re going down.”

It takes her nearly a minute before she pauses. “Hey, why is this thing still here?”

“Yeah, that’s the challenge,” Max quips, walking over and taking out his bat to wave it aimlessly at the thing. “I dunno why, but no powers work in this weird pocket dimension.”

Suzy groans. “Well that sure puts a damper on that plan. You got any ideas?”

“That’s why I’m asking you,” Max says. “You think it’d still be sitting here if I had anything to go on?”

“No, I guess not...”

Suzy stares at the contraption for a long moment longer, letting out increasingly thoughtful hums before finally Max turns and heads for the exit again. “Well, good luck with that, come see me when you’re done.”

“What? You’re leaving?” Suzy squeaks in outrage. “Aren’t you invested in this too?!”

“Well, yeah, but I don’t wanna stick around you too much,” Max says, pausing to give Suzy a dry look. “I dunno if being a demon straight outta hell is contagious, I don’t wanna risk it.”

“Hey!”

Max doesn’t bother to respond, just slipping back through the portal and vanishing before Suzy can catch him. She growls under her breath, then sighs once more and turns back to the contraption. “So. What am I gonna do with you?”

 

* * *

 

Half an hour later, Suzy’s no closer to finding a way to damage the contraption. She has, however, worked herself into a fine froth of frustration, enough so that she’s darn near giving up and finding some other way to convince Collin ghosts are real. Only near, though.

It’s still enough for her to storm out of the pocket dimension in a rage and march over to punch a poor unsuspecting tree right in the bit of bark that kinda looks like a face if you look at it right. Before she can brutalize it any more, however, her phone goes off to tell her shes got a text. Or rather, texts, as it turns out Collin’s been trying to contact her.

She drops herself to the base of the tree and positions herself comfortably between the roots, making sure she’s good and comfortable before checking to see what it’s about. It’s nothing hugely important, just him asking if she knows where his missing sock is, (she does, incidentally; it’s in her room,) but it still bothers her.

_ sry bout that my phone was off i dunno where ur soc  is _ she sends, already prepared to start aimlessly switching between apps when Collin immediately texts back.

_ :O _

_ wat the heck is that supposed to mean?? _

_ You apologized _

_ For something that wasn’t even important _

_ Who are you and what did you do with Suzy _

Suzy glares at her phone.  _ knock it off c. y r u making a huge fuss _

_ You never apologize _

_ sure i do! _

_ Name one person you’ve apologized to within the last month _

_ you?? just now? _

_ Other than that _

Suzy goes to type, then pauses.  _ When have I actually said sorry to someone? C’mon, think, Suzy… _

She blinks.  _ there was this peacock doll i was ignoring?? _

_ Your stuffed toys don’t count they’re not people _

_ it wasnt one of my plushies!! _

_ Other people’s stuffed toys don’t count either _

_ blargh why do even i bother talking to you??? bye!! _

Collin texts something back, but Suzy’s already stuffed her phone in a pocket and she’s determined to ignore him until she can think of some other time she’s apologized— and she’s  _ sure _ it’s happened. She’s not that self-absorbed, right?

Pushing that thought aside, she pulls herself back to her feet and stretches. Then she cracks her knuckles, gives the portal a low glare, and sighs. “Back to work, then.”

 

* * *

 

“So that’s the deal? Our manicuring services in exchange for you destroying that girl’s notebook?”

The poltergeist gives Nin a thumbs up, to which she responds with a nod. “Will you be wanting that before or after your end of the deal?”

(It’s an exercise in frustration, trying to communicate with someone who’s nothing but a hand, but Nin makes do. It helps somewhat that the ghost is used to it.)

After a moment, he performs a series of complicated signs, to which Nin gives another two nods. “Right, right, I suppose it would ruin the whole point of having a manicure.” Nin shakes her head. “Alright, howsabout we meet back up here this time tomorrow, you bring the page, and we go from there?”

Lefty bobs in the air in an imitation of a nod, then whizzes away into the trees. Nin sighs.  _ It’s such a pain, negotiating with other spirits, _ she muses, turning away to leave as well.  _ They always have the weirdest demands. _

 

* * *

 

“I’m an idiot.”

“Well, yes, you are, but what brought this level of uncharacteristic self-awareness?”

Suzy shoots her spirit a glare, not moving from her spot in front of the portal. “You shut up. And I’m an idiot because I  _ totally missed the totally obvious weak point. _ What kinda investigative journalist am I?”

“I dunno, the kind that’s twelve?” Eraserhead rests his hand on the side of his head, eyebrows level. “Honestly, you need to be less critical of yourself. And I mean, also less egotistical in some ways— but also you’re twelve, you’re allowed to make mistakes.”

“You shut up, you’re a dead ghost in a pencil. You’re not allowed to talk about mistakes.” Suzy sighs and lets her forehead hit the rocks making up the frame of the portal. “Honestly, I’m so  _ dumb. _ I was too busy trying to break it from the inside, I didn’t bother trying to break it from outside.”

“Well, aren’t you glad you have me here to help?” Eraserhead says, a smug look on his face, only to be hit in the face with a flicked pebble.

“All you’ve done since I got you has been insult and belittle me, you’re not help,” Suzy says. “All you did was say something that  _ happened _ to make me put the pieces together.”

“I outright told you to try erasing the portal. How is that not helping?” All Eraserhead gets for the trouble is another rock to the face, and he sighs. “I don’t even know why I go through the trouble when this is the thanks I get.”

“Well maybe now that I’ve thanked you, you could finally buzz off?” Suzy suggests. “Just, you know. Just an idea. No biggy.”

Eraserhead scoffs, but sure enough the world floods back to normalcy and Suzy breathes a sigh of relief.  _ Glad to get him off my back. Where was I? _

Her eyes drop to the portal in front of her, and she remembers.  _ Right. This thing. _

Suzy rests a hand on her chin, then leans over and shoves at the pile of rocks with all her might. The only result she gets for her effort is a fresh film of sweat across her brow, which she wipes off with a huff. “Well, guess you’re sturdier than you look. No matter, I’ll find a way.”

Next she picks up a branch and tries to leverage it in the cracks. She strains, pushing with all her might, and then with a mighty crack the branch breaks in two and sends her toppling onto the pile.

She blows a lock of hair out of her face.  _ “Way _ sturdier than it looks. Noted.”

With another sigh, she picks herself back up and tugs out her pencil to start fiddling with it.  _ It’s hardly gonna fall over at the slightest breeze, _ she muses, twirling the pencil around and around,  _ and considering I’ve already tried my best moves on it I doubt I’m gonna get anywhere on that angle. What else…? _

After a moment, she looks down at her pencil.  _...What the heck, it’s worth a shot. _

Attempting to run the eraser over the rocks forming the portal frame has no effect, something Suzy chalks up them technically being ordinary rocks— she experimented with that earlier, the only things affected by her powers are spirits and spectrals. With that in mind, however, her attention quickly turns to the portal proper.

Just touching it sends her falling through to the other side, but the eraser doesn’t have to touch it, now does it? Sure enough, when Suzy passes her pencil near the glowing film of the portal’s surface ripples start spreading, like it’s trying to flee, and then with a great crack the portal breaks.

Violently.

For a few seconds, Suzy looks out over Mayview with awe in her eyes.  _ Is this what it feels like to fly? _ she wonders, before she hits the inside of the barrier and gets sent rocketing back down to earth. She only has a moment to thank everything her trajectory has her headed for the lake before there’s a great splash and everything goes quiet again.

 

* * *

 

Isabel is far from happy to have been roped into helping Ed with the multitude of weird favours he ends up owing to various spirits. Bad enough that it’s not even supposed to be her business, but this chore has her trudging around the shallows of the lake, pants rolled up past her knees as she goes looking for rainbow leeches.

“Who did you even tick off this time?” she asks, wincing when something pinches at her ankle and pulling it up to find just a faint wisp of red energy. “I mean, seriously, this water’s  _ cold!” _

“Well, technically speaking I didn’t so much as tick the guy off as, uh...” Ed trails off for a moment, looking off into the distance, before shrugging. “I dunno? He was a pretty good sport about the whole deal, it’s just he also needed a few of these, and who am I to leave a guy hanging?”

Isabel just sighs at him and leans down to root through the muck. “Honestly. Why am I even here?”

“Because you’re my sister and you love me?” Ed suggests with a grin, to which Isabel responds with an amused snort. “And I’m the only reason you won game night, so you owe me.”

That earns him an annoyed glare. “You know that’s not how Monopoly is supposed to be played,” she grumbles.

“I don’t see why you’re complaining,” Ed says, crossing his arms. “You  _ won.” _

Isabel just huffs and turns away. A distant noise like a firecracker has her glancing up, and a moment later something else makes her look around in confusion. “Hey, do you hear that?”

Ed tilts his head curiously. “Hear what?”

“It kinda sounds like...” Isabel takes a step back and looks up, shielding her eyes with her hand, and frowns. “...screaming?”

A tiny shape in the sky quickly grows more distinct, and the screaming louder. It takes Isabel a moment to recognize Suzy’s shape, and then she only has a moment to jump out of the way before a mountainous splash erupts where she’d just been.

She still gets soaked, though.

The spray clears to reveal Suzy sitting chest-deep in muddy water, coughing up her lungs and looking rather unkempt. Isabel stares at her for a moment, realizing she hasn’t even noticed either her or Ed, and then she cracks a grin and wades over.

“...Geez louise, though, was that really necessary?” Suzy mutters with a wry smile as Isabel draws near, before she notices the shadow Isabel casts over her and looks up.

“Hey, Suzy,” Isabel says, leaning over to rest her hands on her knees. “Nice of you to drop by.”

Suzy stares at her for a moment, cheeks dusted lightly with pink, and Isabel can already feel her own cheeks ready to light up  _ seriously that was the corniest pun you could have picked— _ and then Suzy laughs, a small snicker-snort behind her hand, and Isabel’s world falls out around her.

“Heheh, oh  _ wow _ that was terrible,” Suzy says with a small grin as she picks herself up. “I guess it was appropriate though.”

Isabel thanks every ounce of her self control for the fact that she isn’t trailing little spectral energy hearts again. “Yeah,” she says instead, voice only barely strained, “It kinda was, huh? So, uh...” She glances up at where Suzy came from. “What’s the deal with that?”

“Oh, funny story about that, actually,” Suzy mutters, digging through her soaked clothes and pulling out her phone. She winces. “Ah, geez, it’s totally wrecked. My parents are gonna kill me.”

“It might be salvageable if you put it in rice?” Isabel suggests quickly. “I mean. So I’ve heard. I’ve definitely not had the same thing happen to me too.”

Suzy gives her an odd look, but after a moment just sighs and starts wading to shore. “Yeah, I guess that could work. Still, I have a call I should make...”

“You can use mine!” Isabel says, already rushing across to shore where she left her stuff. “Who do you need to call?”

“Max, actually,” Suzy says, trailing after her and wringing out her hair. “Do you have his number?”

“Sure, just gimme a sec,” Isabel says, digging out her phone and quickly scrolling through her contacts to find Max. “Here, go ahead.”

“Thanks.” Suzy dials Max quickly and holds the phone up to her ear. It only takes a moment for Max to pick up.

“Guess again!” Suzy chirps after a moment, breaking into a sunny grin, and then winces away from the phone when it explodes into noise. “Hey— Hey, relax, buster. I didn’t do anything. My phone got wrecked when I was launched into the lake, so she’s letting me borrow hers.”

A pause. “...Yeah, when I blew up the portal. ...Yeah? It blew up. It wasn’t that hard once I thought about it right. You all just didn’t know what you were doing.” A bit of noise, not loud enough to be intelligible from this distance. “Hey, is that any way to talk to the person who just saved us all from— geez, he hanged up.”

In that moment, Isabel dearly wishes she had superhuman hearing, just so she could listen in of both sides of the conversation. “So, what was all that about?” she asks as Suzy hands her phone back.

“Oh, I was just doing Max a quick favour,” Suzy says. “I mean, he has something I need to borrow for a bit, and the only way he’d agree to it was this, so. Yeah.”

“Well, it’s nice to see you getting along,” Isabel says.

Suzy snorts. “Yeah, sure, getting along. If that’s what you wanna call it.” She reaches for the side of her head, then pauses and pats around at herself. “Ah, dangit, I must’ve dropped my pencil— sorry, I gotta go.”

“Wait!” Isabel interrupts, before Suzy can take more than a step to leave. “Gimme your phone— so I can put it in rice overnight, I mean. To fix it.”

“Oh. Right, that,” Suzy fumbles her phone out of her pocket and hands it over before turning and rushing off. Isabel watches her go, twin phones in hand, standing in place right up until Ed sidles up next to her.

“So...” he starts, and Isabel knows the look on his face. “You—”

“Don’t even start,” Isabel interrupts, putting a hand over his face as her own face goes red. “I already know I’m hopeless.”

“I wasn’t gonna!” Ed insists, though the grin on his face says otherwise. “I was just gonna comment on—”

“Nope!” Isabel turns Ed around and shoves him back towards the water. “Don’t you have leeches to be hunting?”

“Aw, come on!”

 

* * *

 

Suzy sighs as she finally finds the place she’d left her stuff, distinctly marked by the rocks scattered everywhere. There’s no sign of the portal inself anywhere, which Suzy takes as further confirmation that her pencil worked properly.

Speaking of which, she can’t find her pencil anywhere. She’s searched the clearing high and low, pocketing her notebook along the way— she’s actually grateful she’d dropped it there, as otherwise it’d be as wrecked as her phone— but there’s no sign of her pencil, and she’s understandably a little miffed.

It doesn’t help that of all the people who could show up, it has to be the one person she has no chance of browbeating into helping.

“You look like a drowned rat,” is the first thing out of Max’s mouth, and also the thing that alerts Suzy to his presence. “Guess you weren’t kidding about the lake.”

Suzy just shoots him a hot glare over her shoulder. “What are you here for, Maxwell?”

“Checking to see if you were actually being honest for once,” Max says, shrugging. “I mean, I did hear a noise, but that could have been from any number of things. For all I knew, you could’ve been off galavanting in France. I mean, you’re certainly in Seine—”

“Yes, I get it,” Suzy cuts in, pushing aside a bush to look underneath it. “So now that you’ve seen I’ve managed to get rid of the thing, how about your end of the deal?”

“Yeah, I still don’t know where Lefty is, so you’ll have to wait a while for that.” Max shrugs. “More importantly, what are you looking for? Your conscience?”

_ “No,” _ Suzy growls. “I dropped my pencil somewhere.”

“Oh, right, of course,” Max says. “You never had a conscience, so you wouldn’t know to look for it.”

“I  _ will _ hit you if you keep this up, Max,” Suzy warns. “I don’t have time for your sarcasm. This is important.”

“Yeah, fine, whatever,” Max says, walking over and leaning down to look around the base of a tree. “What’d you even do, though?”

“What?” Suzy looks over with a puzzled look. “Like, in general, or…?”

“How you blew up the portal, I mean.” Max crosses his arms. “Did you get your hands on high explosives or something?”

“Oh, that. Nah, I just tried to erase it.” Suzy stands up straight and scans the forest floor, looking for that flash of yellow. “Turns out weird portals to pocket dimensions don’t like having magic pencils applied to them.”

“So that’s what your tool is? A pencil that erases things?”

“Yeah.” Suzy pauses to glare at him. “Hey, are you gonna help me search, or are you just gonna hang around interrogating me about random things?”

Max shrugs. “Eh, I’d rather not. Wandering around with my face in the mud like that would ruin my complexion.”

“...Your complexion.” Suzy gives him a dry look. “Really.”

“Really.” Max stares right back, face totally blank, until finally Suzy makes a frustrated noise and returns to rooting around in the underbrush. “Changing the subject, you said you borrowed Isabel’s phone?”

Suzy doesn’t look up. “Yeah? What about it?”

“It’s nothing, just...” Max hums uncertainly. “...I thought you two were enemies or something?”

Suzy’s sudden grip snaps the branch she’d been moving out of the way. “Th-that was! A tactical move!” she yells, whirling around. “I wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with her under any other circumstances!”

“Uh huh,” Max says, thoroughly unimpressed. “Well, whatever, just because you’ve got some repressed gayness going on—”

“What? I’m not repressing anything, what gave you that idea?” Suzy asks, rage vanishing just as fast as it had appeared.

Max looks incredulous. “Look, I understand if you’re in denial about it, but you’re obviously into girls. I won’t judge.”

Suzy stares at him for a moment, then it clicks. “Oh,  _ that? _ ” she says, face twisting into amusement before she bursts into fits of giggles. “Th-that’s— heheheh, you think I’m— I’m not in denial about being gay, Max!”

Max blinks. “You’re not? But, Isabel—”

“Just because!” Suzy interrupts loudly. “Just because I’m into girls in general, doesn’t mean I’m into this particular girl.” She crosses her arms. “Geez, Maxwell, talk about generalisation.”

“You— but—” Max makes a noise of frustration in the back of his throat, then droops in defeat. “Fine. Have it your way. Just don’t come crying to me when it turns out I’m right.”

“Buddy. You are not the first person to assume I have a crush on Isabel.”

Max’s eye twitches. “And have you considered that they might be right?”

“Nope!” Suzy chirps. “I mean, duh, she’s my arch-nemesis. I can’t have a crush on the enemy.”

“Flawless logic there, really.” Max sighs. “Well, I’m leaving. Have fun getting lost in the woods or whatever.”

“Yeah, good riddance.” Suzy doesn’t watch him go, instead returning to searching the bushes. As such, she doesn’t see when Max pauses and stoops to pick something up.

“Hey,” he says, and Suzy turns her head to snap at him for still being there. She pauses, though, when she sees what he’s holding. “Isn’t this what you’re looking for?”

Suzy leaps at him and is effortlessly dodged. “Give me that!”

“Okay, geez, I was gonna!” Max says, tossing the pencil over and raising his hands defensively. “Sheesh, overreacting much?”

Suzy just shoots a glare at him before checking the pencil over and, once she’s sure it’s undamaged, tucking it behind her ear. “Where’d you even find it? I’m sure I already looked over here.”

Max shrugs. “It was behind a rock.”

“Seriously.”

“Yep.”

Suzy sighs and rubs at the bridge of her nose. “Well, whatever,” she says, breezing past Max and adjusting her glasses by the frame. “Come find me whenever your pal finally bothers to show his face. Lefty, or whatever.”

“So, never?” Max quips, and Suzy turns around again just to raise an eyebrow. “Lefty doesn’t have a face,” he elaborates with a shrug. “He’s just a hand. Dunno how he sees, but I’ve learned not to question things.”

“Huh. Well, again, whatever.” Suzy turns to head back along her way, scaling the steep incline leading back to the road. “You know where to find me.”

“That’s an awful lot of trust you’re putting in me,” Max comments. “I mean, I could just not tell you. Then I’d have gotten a favour for nothing in return.”

Suzy pauses, then slowly presses her palm to her face. “Dangit, you’re right.”

“Plus you lost your phone, and we didn’t have each other’s numbers anyway...” Max trails off and shrugs. “Honestly, you really should have thought this through a little more.”

“Oh yeah?” Suzy turns to face Max again, arms crossed confidently. “I could say the same to you.”

Max blinks. “What do you mean?”

“Buddy.” Suzy levels a stare at him. “You just pointed out to me why I shouldn’t leave you alone.”

It takes a moment for the realization to click in Max’s head, and Suzy cherishes the brief widening of his eyes before he turns to run—

 

* * *

 

“I still can’t believe Dad just let you join in like that,” Max grumbles as he flicks through the meager few dollar bills in his hands.

“Eh, he’s a schmuck. Schmucks dig the cute girl act.” Suzy hums lightly as she rolls the dice and pushes her thimble along the edge of the board, breaking into a wide grin when she reaches her destination. “Hey, Max’s sister.”

“My name’s Zoey,” Max’s little sister deadpans. “What do you want?”

“Guess who finally got the last space on the board.”

“I dunno, was it dad?” she guesses, already leaning over to check the price on the space. “That’s pretty impressive, considering he’s still downstairs.”

“Oh, those are some pretty big words, did your brother teach you those?” Suzy asks, handing over the required money.

“Nah, if he were the one teaching me this it’d be all weird spooky stuff like  _ poltergeist, _ or whatever.” Zoey sticks out her tongue. “He’s boring.”

Suzy blinks, then raises an eyebrow. “Seems like you already learned at least that from him, though.”

Zoey blows her a raspberry, and seems about ready to continue the Puckett Brand Sarcasm when her dad comes trotting up the stairs. “Hey-ho, kiddos! Brunch is here!”

Suzy gives the boxes in his arms a curious look. “You’re having pizza for brunch?”

“Well, yeah, why not?” Max asks, getting up to take one of the boxes.

Zoey, meanwhile, just gives her Dad a supremely unimpressed look. “You took too long,” she announces, “so we just skipped all your turns and put you in jail for loitering.”

“Agh, the judicial system in this place needs some serious work,” Dad Puckett bemoans as he drops down next to Max with the other pizza box. “Don’t I at least get a trial?”

“No.” Zoey lifts her chin imperiously. “I’m the judge, and I already decided you’re guilty.”

Dad shakes his head slowly. “The bank is controlling the system, what has this world come to? Hey, who’s up for taking down this dystopian society?”

Suzy grins. “I’m out, this dystopia is giving me boatloads of cash.”

“Looks like it’s just you and me against the world,” Dad stage whispers. “Good thing we have the pizza on our side, that’s one trump card no one can hope to beat.”

“You’re using too many big words,” Zoey complains, throwing the dice at him. “Just do your turn already.”

“Yeah, yeah, alright,” Dad gripes good-naturedly. He tosses the dice into the center of the board and makes a disappointed noise, but before Suzy can see what he actually rolled her attention is grabbed by a flicker in the corner of her vision.

Surreptitiously turning her head to look, she finds an odd trail of silver-grey energy rapidly fading at the edge of the window. Before she can get up to investigate, however, she’s brought back to the game by Max prodding her shoulder. “Hey, moneybags, it’s your turn.”

“Oh, right.” Suzy turns back and takes the dice, casually filing the oddity away as she rolls.  _ I can investigate later, _ she decides,  _ for now I just have to con Max out of the rest of his cash. _

Unseen by anyone, Lefty creeps back up to the edge of the window and peers through, just waiting for his chance.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this time i got not only one, but TWO fanarts???? both happening in one day? how did this happen?? first another Very Gay Moment by tumblr user maxpucketts, (brushstrokesapocalyptic.tumblr.com/post/159302408004/) then a variety pack of doodles from zendria! (brushstrokesapocalyptic.tumblr.com/post/159316100589/) truly i am blessed!

“Thanks again for having me!”

“It was no trouble, really,” Dad Puckett says as he waves Suzy off, Zoey firmly affixed to his shoulders. “It’s like they always say, Midday Monopoly is always funner with more players!”

“Literally no one before you has ever said that,” Max grumbles, adjusting his hat and pushing past Suzy to get to the door. “And it’s not remotely midday anymore.”

“Details, schmetails,” Dad Puckett scoffs. Any further things he has to say are cut off by the door sliding shut behind Max, who lets out a sigh of relief and sets off down the dim lit street.

Then he pauses, and turns to glare at Suzy. “Why are you still following me?”

Suzy shrugs. “I haven’t gotten to meet this poltergeist of yours yet,” she says, glancing around curiously, “so until that happens I’m sticking as close to you as I can till he shows up.”

“You’re really not letting me off the hook on that, huh.” Max sighs. “Look, I don’t control him or anything, Lefty just goes and does what he wants. You’d be better off combing the town looking for him than continuing to follow me around.”

“Yeah, but that would take effort, plus this annoys you.” Suzy grins widely. “It’s a win-win situation for me, don’t you think?”

“Point number fifty-seven on the abridged list of evidence Suzy is a demon,” Max deadpans. “I’m not sure why I expected anything else, really. Isn’t there anyone else you could be pestering, though?”

“Nope!” Suzy chirps. “See, you’re the only one with a poltergeist. And I’ve already done you a favour. I’m not gonna let myself get indebted to you, that’d just make for an even bigger mess than we already have going on.”

“Ugh, fine!” Max throws his hands up in disgust before turning to continue along the street. “Look, I  _ promise _ I’ll take Lefty with me to see you tomorrow, and if I don’t then you have full permission to come to my house and eat all our bacon or whatever— but can you  _ please _ just go home already? It’s getting late.”

Suzy raises an eyebrow. “Well, this is sudden. I still don’t know how honest you’re being, though.”

“Suzy,” Max grits out, “I  _ just _ said you can pester me to your heart’s content if I don’t keep my word. What else do you  _ want _ from me? The sun’s practically setting already!”

Suzy gives him a narrow look, subtly glancing over at the sky— it really is getting late, she notes, she doesn’t know how the time got away from her— before she finally sighs and stuffs her hands in her pockets. “Fine,” she relents, turning her nose up at Max’s back, “But you’d better believe we’ll be talking tomorrow.”

“Fine, geez,” Max says, not bothering to look at Suzy before he quickens his pace to leave her behind. Suzy, on the other hand, slows to a stop and watches him go for a long moment.

Then she raises a hand to cup her mouth and calls out, “And it’ll definitely be before noon! No slacking off!”

Max’s shoulders visibly stiffen for a moment. “Fine, geez!”

 

* * *

 

That morning, Suzy wakes up early and decides to pay Collin an unscheduled visit, which happens to be Suzy-speak for inviting herself in through the front door and sitting in his room playing with his cat until he wakes up. As one might imagine, Collin isn’t particularly impressed upon waking up to that particular scene.

“Aren’t there better ways you could spend your time than breaking into people’s houses?” he asks, still half-asleep and dreading the answer he knows is coming. She always has better things to do, she just chooses the worst possible option every time.

“For your information, they let me in this time,” Suzy corrects, fluffing up the cat’s luxuriously fluffy cheeks. “Your dad makes great bacon, by the way.”

“I know, I live here,” Collin says, rubbing his eyes and rolling out of bed. “Speaking of people who live here,  _ you don’t. _ What’d you bribe them with?”

Suzy lets out an indignant huff. “I didn’t have to bribe them, Collin. They were happy to invite such a good friend of their son in for breakfast, especially one whose parents were working too many hours to make breakfast for her. They’re so nice, you know that?”

“Oh, so you lied to them.”

“Hey, it wasn’t  _ all _ fake,” Suzy says, leaning to follow the cat as it wanders over by Collin’s feet. “I just exaggerated how busy they are and how little cereal there is in the cupboards.”

“One of these days, my parents are gonna realize they’re not supposed to invite vampires inside.”

“Come on, I’m a zombie, not a vampire.”

“It’s a metaphor.”

Suzy huffs again, but doesn’t say anything more. Collin watches her struggle to reach the cat again without moving from her spot, blinking sleep from his eyes, then yawns widely and glares at her. “Do you have anything else to say, or are you gonna get out so I can take a shower already?”

“Nah, I just— oh, wait, no, I do have something to say!” Suzy jolts upright, a wide grin on her face as she faces Collin again. “Remember when me and Dee were talking about how ghosts are totally real and we can see them but you can’t because we’re zombies or whatever?”

Collin blinks slowly. “...Vaguely. Are you about try and convince me my house is haunted or something?”

“Psh, nah, every house is at least a little haunted, you’re not special,” Suzy says with a dismissive flap of her hand. “No, I’m just saying I’m probably gonna have some proof ghosts are  _ totes real _ later today, and you should be ready for that.”

“How the heck am I supposed to be ready for you throwing a ghost at me?” Collin asks, then immediately cuts off Suzy before she can say whatever inane comment she has in store. “No, you know what, I don’t want to hear it. Consider me warned.”

Suzy nods, crossing her arms, and remains firmly rooted to the floor. “Right.”

After a moment, Collin’s eye twitches. “Now will you please  _ get out of my room?!” _

 

* * *

 

When Max finally manages to track Suzy down with Lefty in tow, he finds her chasing a cat in circles around someone’s backyard. Closer inspection reveals the cat has what appears to be a pencil in its mouth, which explains the why of the situation, but nothing else.

In lieu of actually asking about it or helping, however, Max elects to simply pull himself up onto the fence and rest his chin in his hands as he waits for Suzy to notice. The scene plays out for a remarkably long time, the cat clearly playing while Suzy… Well, Max finds it a little hard to tell if she’s serious about all the threats and insults she’s spewing. Once upon a time, before he’d actually met Suzy, he would’ve said she’s not serious. But that was before he met her.

“Hey,” someone says, jolting Max from his reverie and nearly startling him off the fence. After a moment of terrified windmilling in an attempt to regain his balance, assisted by Lefty supporting his back, Max manages to look over and find a distinctly unimpressed Collin sipping at a juicebox. “Why’re you sitting on my fence?” Collin asks.

“I noticed Suzy making a fool of herself,” Max replies cooly, trying to look like he didn’t just almost fall from his perch. “I figured this was a better vantage point than on the other side of the fence, and also I have some business with her, so...”

Max trails off, and Collin nods like that isn’t the strangest thing he’s heard today. Not breaking his deadpan look, Collin turns, takes a few steps into the yard, and crouches. The moment the cat passes near on its circuit trying to escape Suzy, Collin’s hand shoots out and snags the cat by the collar. “Hey. Hey. Kitty. Drop it.”

The cat pulls at its collar, letting out an audible growl, but Collin just levels that same unimpressed stare at it until Suzy finally catches up. “Wow, you’re finally, actually, helping me?” she heaves out between wheezes, taking several deep breaths before continuing. “I thought you’d completely abandoned your duties as my assistant.”

“Actually, I was completely prepared to let her keep the pencil,” Collin says, finally freeing up his other hand to start prying the pencil from his cat’s mouth, “But Max says he’s got business with you, and I figured that was kinda more important. Here, have your pencil.”

“Wow, you actually did something for me?” Suzy says, resting a hand over her heart in fake shock as she accepts the pencil. “I thought this day would never come!”

Collin just gives her a dry look as he gathers his cat up in his arms and stands back up. “Don’t take it personally. Wood splinters would be bad for her digestive system.”

“Of course.” Suzy tucks her pencil behind her ear, then turns to look around. “Anyway, what’s this about Max? Where is he?”

“Over thataway,” Collin says, jabbing a thumb behind him. “He was sitting on the fence last I checked.”

“Huh? I don’t— oh, there he is, by the tree.” Suzy lights up with a grin and waves enthusiastically. “Woo-hoo, hi Max! Did’ja bring the poltergeist with you?”

“And that’s my cue to leave,” Collin says, turning on his heel and immediately getting tugged back by the back of his shirt.

“Nuh uh, you’re not going anywhere, this kinda concerns you too,” Suzy says, dragging him along behind her as she marches on over to the bored-looking Max. “Hi! You did bring your ghost with you, right? He the extra hand you got there?”

“Yes,” Max drones, sharing a flat look with Collin before leaning back and motioning for Lefty to move over to her. “I’ve already told him everything you’ve told me, he’s agreed to do whatever it is you want him for for whatever reason, please never talk to me again.”

“Sweet, sweet, no can do on the last one though,” Suzy says, cheerfully dropping Collin on his back to offer Lefty a handshake. “Nice to meet you, Mister Lefty!”

Lefty gives Suzy’s hand a firm shake then moves back to offer a thumbs up, at which point Max lets out a loud sigh and stands up. “Well, I’m leaving. Bye.”

He pulls out his bat and with a flourish goes rocketing away in the direction of the nearest lamppost. Collin stares at the empty space left behind, trying to find the mental energy to properly question it, and sighs. “Suzy.”

“Yeah?”

“Do the Activity Club members have super powers?”

Suzy blinks, turning away from— at far as Collin can tell— the empty air she’d just been rapidly taking notes on. “Yeah, kinda, why do you ask?”

“No reason.” Collin pulls himself upright, pushing the cat off his chest as he goes, and levels a tired stare at Suzy. “So. I seem to recall you saying something about ghosts like an hour ago.”

Suzy blinks, then grins widely and drops to her knees next to him. “Yeah, I did! Are you ready to get  _ totally spooked out of your mind _ now?”

Collin looks around at his backyard, lit up bright by the morning sun, then down at the cat forcing herself back onto his lap, then back at Suzy. “This doesn’t really look like prime haunting material.”

“Feh, take it or leave it, buster,” Suzy says with a dismissive hand wave. “This is what we’ve got, we just gotta make do.”

“Uh huh. Well, are you—” Collin starts, then pauses when something moves at the edge of his vision. His eyes drop to find Suzy’s notebook, covered in arcane scribbles and left on the grass by her knee— or rather, it had been on the grass a moment ago, and now it was floating half a foot in the air and flipping through itself. “Uhhh, Suzy…?”

“Hm? What?” Suzy follows Collin’s gaze down to the notebook and yelps when she sees what it’s doing, immediately making a grab for it and hitting the ground when it dodges. “Hey! Give that back, it’s mine!”

What follows is more or less a repeat of what Max had stumbled upon earlier, replacing Suzy’s pencil with a notebook and the cat with a ghost. The ghost, for its part, does a remarkable job of dodging Suzy’s lunges while simultaneously flipping through the pages like it’s just doing some light reading. Collin, on the other hand, is perfectly willing to just sit back and watch, letting his cat rub her face all over the front of his shirt as he tries to figure out it there’s some trick Suzy could’ve used to fake this.

_ Wires from the trees? No, I’d be able to see them at this distance, and there’s too much moving around. Wires from a helicopter? Same problems, plus there’s no helicopters around. Electromagnets…? No, that’s ridiculous, paper isn’t magnetic… _ Collin scratches fruitlessly at his head, like it’ll somehow unlock the secrets of the universe, then looks up at the sound of tearing paper and an outraged wail.

Most of the notebook has dropped from the air into Suzy’s waiting hands, but a single crumpled page remains floating in the air out of reach. “Seriously?!” Suzy demands, slamming the rest of her notebook shut and glaring up at the crumpled page. “What’d I ever do to you? What’d my  _ poor innocent notebook _ ever do to you?!”

The paper bobs in the air, the way it twists beforehand making it seem almost like it’s simply held in the hand of an invisible person shrugging, before it zips away and vanishes into the distance.

Suzy lets out a disgusted sigh.  _ “Honestly. _ And he had to get rid of the page with Eraserhead on it, too!” Suzy pauses, then finishes shoving the notebook back into her pocket. “And I guess whatever was on the other side, too, but that’s less important. Geez, what a jerk.”

“Suzy.” Collin rubs at the bridge of his nose, not bothering to look and see if Suzy’s responded to her name. “Are you gonna give me an explanation on how you pulled that off, or am I gonna have to start believing you on the ghost thing?”

“You’re gonna have to start believing me on the ghost thing.”

Collin grits his teeth. “Great.”

 

* * *

 

_ Hey Max do you have any idea where Suzy lives?? I wanna give her phone back to her. _

 

_ no idea where she lives & dont wanna know _

 

_ but i do know where she was like fifteen minutes ago so _

 

_ TY! _

 

* * *

 

“No, no, it’s like— ghosts are spirits that are made when things die, okay? And spirits are like ghosts that were never ‘alive' in the first place.”

Collin frowns at Suzy. “That’s confusing and sounds like a tautology. Are you sure you know what you’re talking about?”

Suzy’s expression remains blank. “No, but I’m too prideful to get someone more experienced to explain it for me.”

“Someone more experienced to who what now?”

Suzy yelps and whirls around to face the fence, where Isabel now stands with her head just peeking over the edge. “I-Isabel! What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to tell you I got your phone working again,” Isabel says, lifting herself to lean over the fence. “But hey, what’re you two talking about? And why are you on the ground?”

Suzy’s mind blanks when she tries to come up with an explanation, but to her eternal gratitude Collin quickly comes to her rescue. “We’re sitting on the ground because we didn’t bother to move,” he says, “And Suzy was talking to me about ghosts.”

Isabel blinks, then raises an eyebrow at Suzy. “Ghosts?”

“Y-yeah, ghosts,” Suzy says, hurriedly crossing her arms and looking away. “What about it?”

“That’s—” Isabel cuts herself off immediately, resting a hand on her chin and earning a confused look from Suzy. After a moment, she shakes her head. “You know, I was about to say that’s against the rules, but between you and Dimitri it’s a wonder he didn’t figure it out on his own.”

“It’s not like he made it easy, you know,” Suzy deadpans.

“I’m  _ right here, _ you know.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Isabel apologizes, going to rub sheepishly at the back of her head before remembering she’s using it to stay on the fence. “Just don’t go shouting it from the rooftops, okay?”

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Collin says, crossing his arms and looking away.

Isabel gives a satisfied nod, then perks up. “Oh, before I forget!” she says, reaching back to fish something from her back pocket and subsequently overbalancing forward, falling from her perch, and landing in a tangled heap between Suzy and Collin.

“Here’s your phone back,” she says as she holds up Suzy’s phone, voice muffled by the dirt.

Suzy wordlessly takes her phone, shoulders shaking with repressed laughter, and quickly turns to focus entirely on her phone screen. She makes a delighted noise when it turns on easily, prompting Isabel to lift her head and give a small grin. “See? I told you it was still salvageable.”

“Oh, I didn’t doubt you,” Suzy says, waving a hand vaguely in Isabel’s direction, “I’m just happy to not have to be separated from it any longer. Oh dear phone, how I’ve missed you so...”

Isabel laughs lightly, pulling herself up to sit cross-legged. “Man, I dunno if I should be here, it kinda feels like I’m just a third wheel between you and your phone.”

“Oh, trust me, it’s not just you,” Collin deadpans. “This happens all the time.”

“You shut up,” Suzy says, finally lowering her phone to glare at Collin. “Maybe I was just eager to make sure I haven’t missed any important texts or phone calls? How about  _ that?” _

“None of your messages are ever important, Suzy,” Collin says, crossing his arms again. “That’s like, the  _ biggest _ oxymoron I can imagine.”

Suzy just blows a raspberry at him and tucks her phone away. Seeing an opportunity to change the subject, Isabel clears her throat. “So, um, Suzy, I don’t wanna seem like I’m intruding on you two, but, uh...”

Collin glances down at where Isabel is tugging nervously at the grass, then up at the faint red tint on her cheeks, and shrugs and gets up to leave. “Nah, don’t worry, I’m pretty sure we were basically done already.”

“Oh, that’s pretty lucky, then!” Isabel says with a nervous grin, alongside Suzy giving Collin a confused look. “Because, uh, Suzy...”

Suzy tilts her head curiously. “Yeah, what is it?”

Isabel takes a deep breath, then before she can back down spits it out all at once. “There’s this movie I wanted to go see,” she says, “But Ed isn’t really interested in it and neither are any of Gramps’ other students and going to see a movie in theaters on my own would kinda suck so do you wanna go see this movie with me?”

Suzy blinks, processing the information as Isabel takes a deep breath in recovery. “...What’s the movie about?” Suzy finally asks.

“It’s a paranormal action flick,” Isabel says, fighting back the heat in her cheeks. “I’ve heard some pretty good things about it, but I haven’t actually seen it for myself yet.”

Suzy hums, tilting her head back in forth thoughtfully a few times before shrugging. “What the heck, Collin just abandoned me anyway. What time were you thinking?”

“Uh, well, let’s see, the next showing is in...” Isabel pulls out her phone to check the time. “Twenty minutes. In the theater at the bottom of the hill.”

Isabel meets Suzy’s eyes, and after a moment they both crack identical grins. “Race you?”

 

* * *

 

The movie, Suzy finds, is terribly predictable.

“—I swear, they practically gave away the whole twist ending when they showed that calendar!” she raves as they leave the theater, arms waving wildly through the air as she goes. “September- _ freaking _ -nineteenth, of course he’s a ghost!”

Isabel blinks, casually leaning out of the way of Suzy’s arm. “Wait, what’s the significance of that date again?”

“In the opening narration, that’s when they said the world got broken,” Suzy explains, letting her arms drop back to her sides. “Add to that the fact that Whatshisface McMayonaise’s calendar ends there, and, well...”

“Ah, yeah, I see what you mean,” Isabel says, pushing the door open and stepping out into the sunlight. “I dunno, I didn’t catch it on the first go around, maybe they just put it there for people to notice next time they watch the movie?”

“I’d  _ like _ to think that, yeah,” Suzy says crossing her arms, “but they focused on it for ten straight seconds with nothing else going on! It’s like they’re trying to slap you in the face with the fact that  _ hey, this guy died last year! Look! Look, this guy’s totally dead! _ ”

“I’ll admit, it  _ was _ a strange bit of cinematography,” Isabel admits, “but it’s a bit of a leap to go from  _ out of date calendar _ to _ calendar’s owner is dead. _ ”

“Well, you’d think so, but I have a  _ theory,” _ Suzy says, taking a dramatic pause to turn to face Isabel and continue walking backwards. “I have a theory, that calendars are a symbolic representation of mortality in that movie. Like, you know how there was that calendar in the narration that flipped through the years before tearing into shreds in September?”

“...You concocted a theory about calendars symbolizing death in the middle of watching the movie?” Isabel asks, incredulous, then pauses to think. “Literally, the middle of the movie. The scene with the calendar was right in the middle of the movie.”

“First quarter, really,” Suzy says absently.

Isabel gapes. “That’s even more— I don’t even know what word describes that, but that’s even more of it!”

“What can I say?” Suzy shrugs. “I work fast. Besides, there’s like at least two calendars of some sort in  _ every scene, _ I’d be a terrible journalist if I couldn’t pick up on something as blatant as that.”

“More like a conspiracy theorist if you ask me,” Isabel mutters, and Suzy politely ignores her. “Anyway, timekeeping methods aside, how about those special effects though?”

“Oh man, what can I say about the  _ special effects?” _ Suzy says, perking up. “The ghosts especially, even if they don’t look anything like— WOAH!”

As the inevitable fallout of not looking where she’s going, Suzy trips over a spirit— one that resembles, as she would later note down in her book,  _ a cross between a limousine and the dragon from Never Ending Story but with more teeth and the size of a burmese python. _ The spirit, for its part, is entirely unfazed by having someone trip over it. It just continues scuttling along its merry way under the arch of Suzy’s legs as she lands on her butt and just kinda stares at it for a moment.

After that moment has passed, however, she shakes the cobwebs out of her head and get back up. “Anyway, the ghosts looked really cool— I especially liked how they did the whole smokey thing and actually seemed like they were interacting with the actors! Though the actual spirits in the background kinda ruined the mood in some scenes.”

“Believe it or not, that’s actually the least I’ve ever seen spirits interfering with movies,” Isabel says as they resume walking. “I actually heard the director is part of the Consortium, and he kept the spirits from getting right up in the camera like they do in most movies.”

Suzy blinks and tilts her head quizzically. “The Consortium? What’s that?”

“Oh, right!” Isabel perks up. “Right, you haven’t gotten the talk about the Consortium yet! It’s kinda like a… parent organization, to the Activity Club. Or, well, really the Paranatural Activity Club. You haven’t seen the full name for it yet, have you?”

“Wha— uh, no, I guess?” Suzy blinks a few times, slightly dazed by the sudden introduction of several new concepts. “It’s not just called the Activity Club?”

“No, the full name is actually the Paranatural Activity Club, but the first part is written using Ed’s brush so only spectrals can see it,” Isabel explains. “You haven’t come by the clubroom since you became a spectral, have you?”

“No, guess not. Wow, I didn’t think there were  _ even more _ new things to learn...” Suzy trails off, staring thoughtfully at her feet, before looking back up. “Right, uh, what was this Consorti-whatsit?”

“The Paranatural Activity Consortium,” Isabel says. “Like I said, they’re basically the parent organization for our club. The members live all over the world and meet up in this weird dream hub when they sleep, which is kept stable by their leader who—”

“—Woah, woah, okay, slow down there, buttercup,” Suzy says, gently applying her hand to Isabel’s face. “One thing at a time. What do you mean by parent organization?”

“Um, well, you know how Mr. Spender’s our faculty advisor?” Suzy nods, and Isabel continues, “He’s a member of the Consortium, and when me ‘n Ed got old enough for middle school he formed the Activity Club to deal with teaching spectral youth— Dimitri joined up pretty quickly, then left after Isaac, well...”

Suzy blinks. “Wait, hang on, Dimitri was in the Activity Club?”

“...Yeah?” Isabel gives Suzy a quizzical look. “He didn’t mention?”

“No! If I’d known that, I coulda bl—” Suzy breaks out into a coughing fit, remembering who she’s talking to here, before continuing. “If I knew he’d been in the Activity Club at one point, I might have had a little less trouble figuring out what you actually do. You caused me a lot of grief before with all your secretiveness, y’know!”

“Yeah, sorry about that. Rules are rules, though,” Isabel says lightly. “But man, I’d’ve thought he’d have at least mentioned it while he was telling you about all the other stuff!”

“You’d think so, yeah.” Suzy sighs, then thinks for a moment and glances back at Isabel. “Why’d he leave, anyway?”

“Oh, well, there was an... incident, back when Isaac first joined the club.” Isabel visibly sobers thinking about it, and Suzy frowns. “He lost control of his powers, Dimitri got in the way, and, well… I mean, the only real lasting damage to Dimitri was a few scars, but he lost his spirit, and he was out of action for a few weeks. Then once he was finally back to being ready for action, he suddenly announced he was quitting the club, and that’s the last we really talked to him.”

“Huh.” Suzy is silent for a moment, letting the information sink in, before she crosses her arms. “Well, now I get why he didn’t tell me about that bit of knowledge. Weren’t we talking about movies a minute ago? Isn’t this a little heavy for discussing a mediocre action flick?”

“Yeah, but that was a minute ago,” Isabel jokes. “Now we’re talking about Dimitri, and that means tying an anvil to our feet and sinking to the bottom of the Depression Ocean!”

“Got my cement shoes on, I’m ready to drown!” Suzy crows, grin sliding easily onto her face. “But seriously, I can’t believe I had to hear about this from  _ you, _ of all people! If I’m gonna get top tier tragic backstory details, I’m supposed to hear about it from the person themself, not their old clubmate!”

“Yeah, that’s kinda been my role lately, hasn’t it?” Isabel muses. “If you wanna know all about Dimitri’s motivations for why he left the club, though, you’re gonna have to talk to him about it. I can’t exactly read his mind.”

Suzy huffs. “Yeah, I’m gonna talk to him, at the very least to ask  _ why _ he didn’t see fit to tell me about that. Catch you later?”

“Yeah, later!” Isabel waves goodbye as Suzy trots off down the street, watching her go for a moment before turning on her heel and heading off on her own way home.  _ Well, _ she muses,  _ that went well! _

 

* * *

 

_ you didnt tell me u used to be in the aclub >:c _

_ I didn’t? My bad. _

_ Who’d you hear about it from? _

_ isabel and she shouldnt have HAD to tell me about it >:c _

_ u know tragic backstories are supposed to b given out by the person who had the backstory not some other person who witnessed it >:c _

_ My bad. I just figured if you cared that much about it you would’ve dug deep enough to figure it out on your own. _

_ >:ccccccccc _

_ Adding more mouths to the emote isn’t going to make me at all remorseful for not telling you. _

_ >:CCCCCCCCCCC _

_ Nor will making the mouths bigger. You can stop now. _

_ >:c _

_ OH and before i forget whyd you leave _

_ Isabel told you I used to be in the club, but she didn’t tell me why I left? _

_ well she did BUT she also admitted she didnt get your side of the story _

_ and _

_ i know you _

_ u dont keep grudges _

_ at least not long enough to quit the club over them _

_ Maybe you just don’t know me that well. _

_ i WILL break out the angry emotes again dont test me _

_ I’m not going to tell you. _

_ >:O _

_ Opening your mouth won’t make me change my mind. _

_ i am your BOSS >:O _

_ What are you going to do? Fire me? _

_ I’m allowed to not want to air all my secrets, you know. _

_ :c _

_ The sad faces won’t work on me either. _

_ <:c _

_ Still no. _

_ <:,c _

_ Noooope. _

_ fine u win this round _

_ but we will be having WORDS tomorrow _

_ You'll have to catch me first. _

 

* * *

 

_ ED HELP SHE’S CUTE _

_ lol _

_ DON’T LAUGH THIS IS SERIOUS I MIGHT DIE SHE’S TOO CUTE _

_ rip _

_ WHY DO I EVER TELL YOU ANYTHING _


	17. Chapter 17

Suzy arrives at school the next day with an expression so thunderous it nearly sets off the already-overcast sky. Her glare only grows deeper when she catches sight of Dimitri. The crowd of students flooding from the buses clears the space between them, as if avoiding the sheer animosity Suzy’s sending Dimitri’s way, which suits Suzy just fine.

Dimitri smirks as Suzy marches his way, just waiting for her to open her mouth to speak.

“Dee—”

He bolts.

“Hey, wait!” Suzy yells, taking off after him. “Get back here!”

Dimitri’s path takes them around the side of the school building, passing by the place the fire had gotten at— it’s still under renovations, Suzy notes. In the split second her eyes are off him, Dimitri manages to get another twenty feet ahead of Suzy and climb up onto the fire escape. Suzy squawks angrily, straining to reach the ladder as well before he can get to the top.

The bottom of the ladder is several feet off the ground, and Suzy’s fingertips can barely reach it even jumping. To her endless frustration, Dimitri pauses at the top of the ladder to watch her with that insufferable smirk on his face. “Having trouble?” he calls down, and Suzy growls.

“Screw you, Dee!” she yells back, and Dimitri just laughs and turns to leave. Suzy growls, face heating up from frustration— _How the heck did he reach it?! He’s not that much taller than me!_

The world goes flat and pastel. “Maybe he’s just better at jumping than you?” Eraserhead suggests.

Suzy lets out an indignified squeak and whirls around. “How long have you been there!”

“Uh, I’ve been here the whole time?” Eraserhead looks at Suzy like she’s dumb— or at least, Suzy thinks he does. It’s hard to tell when his eyes never face the same direction. “I live in your pencil, remember?”

Suzy’s face flushes red and she looks away. “Yeah, but— you didn’t say you could read my mind! And also don’t read my mind that’s creepy!”

“Well, actually, I can only read your emotions,” Eraserhead says, crossing his arms. “I just took an educated guess. You’re very predictable, you know.”

“I am not!” Suzy protests.

“Oh yeah? How about this, then,” Eraserhead says, leaning forward and steepling his fingers under his chin. “I’ll make a prediction. If I’m wrong about it, you get to know what my actual name is.”

Suzy snorts. “ _That’s_ what you’re gambling on? I don’t even care about your name, Eraserhead fits you perfectly. I’m not gonna take your silly bet.”

“Yeah you are.”

“Yeah I am,” Suzy agrees immediately, crossing her arms. “So lay it on me, what silly prediction are you gonna make?”

“Hmm, let me think...” Eraserhead hums and haws, tapping his finger against his mouth thoughtfully. “Oh, here’s a good one. You’re not going to admit you have a crush on that girl, the red spectral, until at _least_ high school.”

Suzy’s face grows redder and redder as the sentence goes on, by the end of it looking more like a mortified tomato than anything else. For a moment, Eraserhead just gives her a smug look, and then Suzy starts sputtering. “What— wh— why— where’d you get that— I don’t— I’m not— That’s not—”

“See? Predictable.” Eraserhead crosses his arms smugly.

“I-I don’t have a crush on Isabel!” Suzy protests, voice raising an octave or two.

“Well, of course not,” Eraserhead, and for a moment Suzy thinks he was just joking— “After all, if you’d just admit it just like that, why would I have bothered making that bet?”

Suzy starts to say something again, but before she can get more than a syllable out (incidentally, that syllable is “Bu—”) he lays a finger on her lips. “Shush, kid, we’re not getting anywhere going in circles like this,” he says. Suzy snaps at his hand, and he quickly retrieves it to cross his arms. “I didn’t actually pull you in here to berate you, as fun as it is. You’re not gonna get up the ladder on your own at this rate.”

Suzy raises an eyebrow skeptically. “Are you saying you’re gonna help me?” she asks, crossing her arms as well and looking askance at Eraserhead. “Doesn’t seem like you.”

“Well, normally I wouldn’t bother,” Eraserhead says, examining imaginary nails, “but watching you scamper around the school like this is hilarious. Plus, I’m also pretty curious about what happened back then. Sounds like quite a story.”

Suzy gives him a wary glare. “So you’re saying you’re only helping me because our interests just happen to align right now?”

“Yes. That’s what I’m saying.” One of Eraserhead’s eyes gives Suzy a tired look, the other one giving the same look to the blank sky. “Look, kid, do you want me to give you a leg up or not?”

Suzy remains skeptical for a moment, then sighs and steps away from the wall. “Fine, whatever— Woah!”

The moment Suzy steps forward, Eraserhead’s hands speed out to hook under her shoulders and lift her up. She lets out a distressed squawk as her feet leave the ground, legs kicking at the air. “H-hey, what the heck! Put me down!”

Eraserhead raises an eyebrow at her. “Hey, I’m _trying_ to help you reach the ladder. What did you think I meant by that?”

“I-I dunno, I figured you’d like get down on your knees and let me climb over you!” Suzy kicks her feet some more. “How are you even lifting me, your arms are practically twigs!”

“Quit squirming like that, I don’t want to drop you,” Eraserhead says, and begrudgingly Suzy stops kicking and just crosses her arms to glower at him like a wet cat. “That’s better.”

With that, Eraserhead turns Suzy around so she’s facing the ladder, and to her reluctant approval she finds she’s at just the right height to grab onto the ladder. She reaches out to grab the first rung, bracing her feet against the wall as Eraserhead reclaims his arms. _I should probably thank him,_ some part of her muses.

“You’re welcome,” Eraserhead says, before Suzy can even open her mouth. She looks back at him sharply, and he gives an amused grin. “Like I said, predictable.”

The world snaps back into reality, and Suzy is left blinking at the shift back into realism. After a moment, though, she huffs and starts climbing. _Right, predictable. Whatever you say._

 

* * *

 

Dimitri gets nearly a minute of ambling casually through the half-singed halls of the school before Suzy catches up, screaming defiance and charging him from around a corner. He gives her an amused look, casually sidestepping her and taking off down another hallway.

“Get _back here,_ you!” Suzy yells, and Dimitri chances a glance back at her— _Yep, she’s mad. And gaining on me surprisingly fast, I better find some way to stall._ “I am your _boss,_ you had dang well better have an explanation lined up for why you’re being all mutinous! A _really freaking good one!_ ”

“Sorry, I don’t remember signing a full disclosure contract!” Dimitri calls back, earning an angry scream in response. He vaults over the barrier separating the under-renovations part of the school from the rest, landing neatly on his feet and spinning to face Suzy and remaining open to go in any direction. Suzy, meanwhile, barrels right into the barrier and tumbles into the floor, rolling head-over-heels and landing face-down at Dimitri’s feet.

Dimitri steps back, giving her a cautious look. “...You okay?” he asks after a moment, and when Suzy fails to respond he kneels down to see if she’s okay, much like that one character in every single zombie movie you’ve ever seen.

Then, much like that one _zombie_ in every single zombie movie you’ve ever seen, Suzy picks that moment to reanimate. Her hand snaps up to grab Dimitri by the wrist, head snapping up a moment later with a snarl. Dimitri yelps and pulls away, managing to twist his arm out of her grip and stumble out of Suzy’s reach as she pulls herself to her feet.

For a moment, Suzy looks animalistic, hunched over with her hair spilling messily into her face. Dimitri unconsciously takes another step back, eyes wide, and then Suzy straightens up and flicks her glasses down to her nose. “So,” she says, brushing her hair out of her face and fixating an icy glare on Dimitri, “Are you ready to explain things to me, or will we have to do that again?”

Dimitri hums, looking around as if giving the idea some serious thought, and for an instant Suzy thinks she may have gotten through to him. Then he bolts again.

“Oh, come _on!_ ”

 

* * *

 

“And then I was like, seriously? _Raisins?”_

Cody laughs lightly, face lit up in one of his signature Sunshine Smiles™, and Jeff stumbles over his words. “S-so yeah, all in all it could’ve gone better, but— do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Cody asks, snapping out of the smile, and Jeff feels almost disappointed. “I don’t hear anything weird.”

Jeff frowns, tilting his head and turning around in search of the source of the noise. “I dunno, I just sounded kinda like… yelling?”

Something brown blurs down the stairs and whips past them, sending loose papers swirling in its wake, _(Someone seriously needs to pick those up,_ Jeff thinks, with absolutely no intention of doing it himself) and a moment later Suzy comes racing down after it. She has a mop in her hands and murder in her eyes, and Jeff instinctively steps out of her way when she goes charging after the blur.

Cody, however, feels no fear. “Hey, wait, you’re not supposed to run in the halls!” he calls after Suzy, though his pleas fall on deaf ears. “Geez, what was all that about?”

Jeff shrugs. “I dunno, but if Suzy’s involved...” he trails off, sharing an uneasy look with Cody, then shakes his head. “Well, anyway! As I was saying—”

 

* * *

 

Suzy throws the mop like a javelin, and Dimitri dodges under the cleaning implement without even slowing down. Suzy growls, ducking and weaving through the crowds of students now flooding the halls, barely managing to keep Dimitri in her sights— _How in the heck is he able to get so far ahead? I’m tripping over classmates every other step, and there he goes right through like they’re clearing a path or something! What the heck!_

Right on cue, she stumbles over a backpack someone left lying on the floor and goes toppling over. Her arms windmill around, quickly finding and latching onto something to keep her from falling over. That something, as it just so happens, is Isabel.

Isabel blinks, looking down bemusedly at the girl now attached to her front. “Suzy? Something wrong?”

Suzy glances up, then yelps and leaps away as she realizes where she landed. “Ack! Sorry! I just— tripped— I didn’t mean to land on you!”

“It’s fine,” Isabel says, waving it off. “But what’re you in such a rush about?”

“Oh I was— uh— Dimitri—” Suzy freezes, glancing around and realizing that while she was distracted Dimitri slipped out of sight. “—Did you see which way Dee went?”

“Dimitri? Yeah, he went...” Isabel turns around, considering the hallway for a moment before pointing at one side of the intersection. “...that way, I think. Why do you—”

“Can’t talk, sorry, see you later!” Suzy darts off in the indicated direction, pausing a few steps away just long enough to add “And thank you!” before vanishing down the hallway.

The hallway Isabel directed Suzy towards is thankfully much less dense, likely owing to the fact that it doesn’t have lockers for people to mill about in front of. As such, Dimitri is easy to locate; he’s slowed to a trot with a notebook under his arm, ambling in the direction of a classroom.

Suzy tries to go for a more stealthy tactic this time, the only sound she makes being the increasingly rapid _tuptuptupTUPTUP_ of her sneakers on the floor. Dimitri notices anyway, much to Suzy’s frustration, glancing back just long enough to confirm it’s her trying to sneak up on him before he takes off running. “Come _on,_ Dee!” Suzy yells, dodging around one of the few people in the hall— some girl with poofy pigtails, Suzy doesn’t care to remember her name. “This mutinous subordinate schtick’s for the birds!”

“You’re the birds!” Dimitri yells back, skidding around a corner, and Suzy darts after him just in time to see him run into one of the classrooms. She moves to go after him, but then the first bell rings and she freezes.

Dimitri gives her a smug smirk, languidly wandering over to a desk while Suzy remains frozen just outside the classroom like an uninvited vampire. _Better get moving if you don’t want to be late to English,_ that look seems to say, and Suzy scowls.

 _This isn’t over,_ she indicates, pointing from her eyes to Dimitri, and he just shrugs. With that, Suzy twists on her heel and runs off, fighting to get to her locker and to class before the second bell rings.

 

* * *

 

Suzy gets to class just in time, the bell ringing just as she skids in through the door. Mr. Starchman seems to consider this dramatic entrance worth giving a star, which Suzy begrudgingly accepts before slumping into her chair.

She already knows half the subject matter— if pursuing journalism has taught her anything, it’s how to write an engaging story. Sure, there’s a difference between a novel and an article, but they’re close enough for overlap, right? And she gets straight A’s in this class anyway, even when she slacks off. So she can _afford_ to slack off.

Of course, Mr. Starchman isn’t really the best judge of what makes a good student. How did he even get hired, anyway? He picks his favorite students and lauds them with praise, even when they blatantly don’t deserve it. It doesn’t make any sense.

Halfway through a metaphor-laden tirade on the Oxford Comma, Suzy props her notebook up to hide her activities and starts idly flicking her fingers around. Pink energy flickers around them, moving like an odd mix of smoke and fire, trailing behind her movements and dancing back upright whenever she pauses.

On a whim, she twirls her hand in a quick circle and grabs onto the ensuing ring before it can dissipate. She examines it, admiring the odd twisting appearance caused by her effectively freezing it in place, then jolts and lets it dissipate as she feels something tapping the back of her shoulder.

Suzy angles her head to see what’s tapping her, and finds Isabel leaning over her desk with her arm outreached to touch Suzy. Seeing she now has Suzy’s attention, Isabel leans back again and forms a wispy ring like Suzy’s. She holds it for a moment, letting Suzy get a good look at it, before making it crunch down into something a little more solid and smooth.

She gives Suzy an expectant look. Suzy just gives her a puzzled eyebrow raise, which Isabel responds to by waving her solid energy ring at Suzy. Suzy gives her a dry look, and Isabel pouts. Suzy sticks her tongue out at Isabel, then turns back to her energy.

 _I should’ve checked where I was sitting,_ she grumbles internally, letting her energy flare. Once more on a whim, she guides the energy to weave around her fingers right at the base like brass knuckles. _Or rose knuckles,_ she supposes, _going by the color. I wonder what the odds were that I’d get pink energy? As opposed to like, green. Green seems way more common._

She lets her energy flow around her fingers for a moment, like a double figure eight, before releasing it and letting it return to being weird pink smoke-fire. _Then again, isn’t Ed’s energy green? It’d suck if we had the same color energy, then we’d have to share tools or something. Oh, but if green spirits are common then green tools would be pretty easy to get, right?_

Something red taps at Suzy’s shoulder, and she looks back to find Isabel smiling at her with a weird gaseous talon extending from her finger to touch Suzy’s shoulder. Suzy raises an eyebrow at her, and Isabel lifts her hand with spectral energy of her own swirling around her fingers in much the same way Suzy had hers— and then, again, Isabel wills it to crunch down into solid, shining red brass knuckles. It has spikes, Suzy notes.

Isabel gestures at Suzy, indicating for her to do the same, and Suzy makes a face. Isabel makes a face right back, which switches over to curiosity when Suzy turns to write something down. After a moment, Suzy lifts her notebook to let Isabel see what she wrote.

 _Stop peeking over my shoulder >:c, _ she wrote, and once she’s sure Isabel’s had time to read it Suzy props her notebook back up and looks to see Isabel’s reaction.

Isabel’s writing something down herself, and after a moment she lifts her own notebook to show her message. _Make me :P_

Suzy glares at her, then turns away again to resume messing with her energy. It flickers around her pencil, she notes, flaring around it like it’s an extension of herself. Idly, she wraps the energy around it, lifting the pencil just a bit from the palm of her hand before freezing the energy in place. Slowly, she turns her hand over, and the pencil goes from suspended over her palm to under it.

Again, Isabel taps her on the shoulder, and Suzy’s hand snaps shut around her pencil before darting up eraser-first to swipe at Isabel. Suzy glances back after a moment to find Isabel blinking at a line of dissipating red energy. _Darn, she used a construct again. I wanted to get her fingers._

Annoyed, Suzy tilts her head with a light glare. _What is it this time?_ Suzy tries to communicate, and whether or not Isabel gets the message she still moves to do something with her energy.

This time, instead of mimicking something Suzy did and modifying it to be… well, better, she forms something like a string tied into a loop at the end. Suzy shoots her a confused look, and in response Isabel lays her forearm flat on the table and flares her energy up on it.

A moment later, the energy collapses down to just a pair of figures standing on Isabel’s arm. One of the figures is recognizably Isabel, while the other looks like some weird monster made mostly of teeth and spikes. The tiny energy-Isabel moves, gaining a tiny energy-lasso like the one Isabel just formed, spins it around, and throws it over the energy-monster. Energy-Isabel pulls on the lasso, pulling the energy-monster to the ground and keeping it from moving as other energy-people form and start attacking it.

Isabel lets the figures dissipate, lifting her arm to wave away the remaining wisps of energy before resting her chin on her hand. Suzy gives her a suspicious look, trying to gauge Isabel’s motivations for handing out advice like this— _Oh, maybe she’s showing off? Showing off how good she is at constructs, and also trying to make me indebted by giving advice. Hah, well played, but I won’t fall for such trickery._

Suzy sticks her tongue out at Isabel again and turns away, missing the disappointed look that flits over Isabel’s face. She shifts her weight to the side, resting her cheek on her hand and positioning her other hand in front of her in such a way that _hopefully_ certain snooping classmate-nemesis-confusing-people wouldn’t be able to peek easily. She lets her energy flare up again, flicking it around in odd patterns before eventually she gets bored again.

Her hand drops, staring blankly at the front of the room trying to think of something to do to occupy herself— listening to Mr. Starchman go on about punctuation is all well and good, but if she doesn’t have something else to do as well she’s sure her brain will melt. After a moment, she subtly turns her head to peek through her hair at Isabel. Isabel appears thoroughly occupied taking notes, thankfully, and with that information Suzy turns back to her hand and cautiously lights it up again.

The energy spins into a wispy thread, flowing from her fingertip like a spider-silk thread caught in an updraft but more like yarn in its thickness. With careful movements, Suzy flicks her hand around to make it form a loop at the end, large enough to fit two fingers through. She does so, tentatively checking the ephemeral thread’s solidity— it feels real enough, at least until her focus wanes and her fingers slip right through.

Clamping down on herself, Suzy lets the lasso hang from her fingertips as she lifts her pencil (using her other hand, of course) and balances it on its eraser. With a flick of the wrist, the lasso flies over the end of the pencil, unbalancing to make it fall towards Suzy— she focuses, gritting her teeth, and the loop tightens around the pencil. She lifts her hand sharply, and the pencil bounces and dangles in the air before clattering back to her desk as the thread vanishes.

The world goes flat. “Wow, great job inventing the world’s most terrible yoyo,” Eraserhead snarks, clapping sarcastically. Suzy jolts, then glares up at him and opens her mouth to speak. “Ah, no, don't do that. We’re in front of all your classmates, only one of which would get the full picture. I’m just here to point something out to you.”

Suzy gives him a puzzled look, to which Eraserhead responds by simply pointing behind her. She whirls around, world blinking back to reality just in time for her to catch Isabel leaning conspicuously far to the side in an attempt to see what Suzy’s doing.

“Would you _stop that?_ ” Suzy snaps, drawing everyone’s attention to her. For a moment, the classroom goes deafeningly silent, everyone turning to stare at the two girls frozen in place realizing they’ve been caught.

Mr. Starchman breaks the silence. “Miss Suzy, is there something wrong?”

Suzy jolts upright, snapping her notebook shut and standing up. “Mister Starchman, Isabel keeps trying to peek at my notes!” she whines.

Mr. Starchman tilts his head, looking over to fix his eyes on Isabel. _(I mean, presumably. Can’t really tell with the glasses.)_ “Is this true, Miss Guerra?” he asks in a remarkably teacherly tone.

“N-no! I wasn’t— I mean, that’s not what I was— I was just—” Isabel stutters out, flailing her hands about defensively. “I was only— _I wasn’t trying to peek at her notes!”_

Starchman frowns, tilting his head down in such a way that the light glints ominously off his glasses. “I see. Well, since you don’t seem ready to confess to your guilt...”

Suzy sighs and drops back into her chair, the dramatic pause dragging on longer and longer as the expression of dread on Isabel’s face deepens.

“...You’ll have to answer some questions!” Starchman announces at long last, throwing the unmarked tests in his hand into the air in a shower of paper and Starchman Stars™. Suzy sighs deeper, face sinking into her hands even as game-show-esque lights which weren’t there a moment ago blink on around Starchman and Isabel’s desks.

Suzy would have thought they were spirits if this were the first time this had happened.

 

* * *

 

Once class is dismissed, thus ending the weirdly educational game show it had turned into, featuring a disoriented Isabel as the main contestant, a flood of students fills the halls again. Silence gives way to chatter, though it is not the excited chatter that occurs during the lunch period, nor the energetic whoops and screams that happen every day when the final bell rings.

No, it’s just the chatter that students engage in to fill the hollow walk to their next class. Suzy doesn’t engage in it herself, lacking either Collin or Dimitri with her in English, and so she simply marches along through the halls towards her next torture— I mean class.

To her surprise, however, somehow hurries to catch up with her. “Hey, Suzy, wait up!” Isabel calls, hurrying out of class and falling into step next to Suzy— _tucking a handful of stars into her pocket,_ Suzy notes. “Listen, about—”

“It’s fine,” Suzy interrupts, waving Isabel off without even looking at her. “You were just being nosy, I’m not really in a position to judge.”

“Wha— oh, right, yeah, I was being pretty nosy,” Isabel says, scratching sheepishly at her cheek. “But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about! I just realized I never asked, d’you wanna come over again sometime? Y’know, for more...”

Isabel waves vaguely with her hand, red energy trailing behind it, and it occurs to Suzy that anyone who isn’t clued in could get some very wrong ideas about the situation. “...Defense training?” she concludes for Isabel, just in case anyone’s listening in on them.

“Yeah!” Isabel chirps, clicking her fingers. “I mean, it’s pretty hard to tell with him, but Grandpa let me invite you over the last few times, so he’ll probably be cool with it again!”

“I think you’re just eager to beat me up again,” Suzy mutters, looking away.

Isabel frowns. “Is that a no?”

“No, it’s not, I was just...” Suzy trails off, catching a glimpse of brown turning the corner. She moves her head to peer beyond the students surrounding them, and— _Yes, it’s Dee!_

She shoulders her bag. “Sorry, I gotta go!” she says, darting off in the direction she spotted Dimitri in.

“But—” Isabel starts, reaching after Suzy, then stopping as she vanishes into the crowd. “You didn’t actually say...”


	18. Chapter 18

“Dimitriii!” Suzy bellows as she rounds the corner, startling Dimitri into an undignified yelp. “You still need to tell meee!”

“I don’t need to tell you anything!” Dimitri yells back as he starts running the other way. Suzy growls, weaving between students like a drunk seamstress weaves a needle through cloth— poorly, with plenty of opportunity for bloodshed and at least one limb banged against a sharp corner.

Suzy continues to wonder how Dimitri manages to get through thick crowds so easily. The chase drags on another few minutes, leading a winding path through the halls, around the back of the school and through the gym multiple times— at least five, Suzy counts, before she gets distracted by the weird bubbles suddenly blocking the path towards science class. Dimitri takes advantage of the confusion to do a complete u-turn and dart past Suzy again, heading for the nearest window and ignoring her outraged squawks.

He manages to get halfway through it before Suzy catches up, grabbing him by the legs and yelling something about them being on the third floor and  _ dangit Dee, you can’t tell me what I want to know with a broken neck! _

The bell rings halfway through her sentence.

The two of them freeze, glancing at each other, before Dimitri gives a nervous grin. “Truce?”

Suzy narrows her eyes at him, but releases him nonetheless and steps back as he climbs back inside. “Truce. But only until lunch.”

Dimitri nods, dusting off his pants and turning to leave. “We both have science next, right? Let’s say we hold the truce until we’ve put our stuff away, then you can start chasing me again.”

“Fine,” Suzy says, still glaring at him, and together they hurry to get to their next class.

 

* * *

 

They meet up outside the cafeteria, the muffled hum of eating students like the whistle of wind that preludes a showdown out on the wild west. A tumbleweed rolls between between them before it pauses, growing a pair of eyes to glance around before rolling away with a trail of sand-colored energy.  _ Better write that down later, _ Suzy muses, before looking back up at Dimitri.

A slight shifting of his weight is the only warning Suzy has before Dimitri turns and bolts. That’s more than enough for Suzy, though, considering how fast Isabel can go from standstill to a sprint.

Even with Suzy starting a split second before him, Dimitri still manages to pull ahead.  _ Curse you, Dimitri! _ Suzy thinks, not bothering to waste her breath saying it out loud.  _ Curse you and your long legs! _

He doesn’t bother with complicated maneuvers this time, instead making a beeline for the front entrance.  _ Oh, I see what he’s doing, _ Suzy thinks.  _ He’s making a break for the front gate, so he can lose me in town. _

She blinks in the sunlight.  _ The gate’s closed though… _

An instant after Suzy thinks that, Dimitri leaps up to start clambering over the gate.  _ Oh. Of course. Why did I expect anything different? _

By the time Suzy reaches the school gate, Dimitri’s already dropped down the other side— hitting the ground running. Suzy moves to climb over as well, before realizing by the time she gets over he’ll be long gone.  _ I need a way to slow him down… _

She frets, grabbing onto the gate and beginning to pull herself up before noticing the spectral energy pouring off her in waves. Slowly, Suzy looks back up at Dimitri, gears turning in her head.

Suzy takes a step back, drawing the energy to flicker around her forearms as she moves her hands around, forming a wispy rope with a loop at the end. She brings it up over her head, spinning it once— twice—

Dimitri nearly trips over himself when an uneven band of pale pink smoke drops over his vision and catches around his chest and arms, not nearly tight enough to bind him. He slows to a stop, mystified, and turns around to find it attached to a line leading back to the school gate, where Suzy is balanced on top of the gate looking smug.

“Do you seriously think you can pull me back with this?” Dimitri calls out, messing with the loose lasso. Suzy tilts her head, face unreadable from this distance— at least until a wide grin splits her chin from the rest of it.

The loop tightens, forcing Dimitri’s arms to his sides, and Suzy drops from the gate with the rope of energy still in hand. It catches on the gate, acting like a pulley to firmly yank Dimitri back hard enough his head hits the gate and he sees stars.

“Well,” Suzy says, voice somewhat strained from the effort needed to hoist Dimitri off the ground, “I’d say this counts as catching you. You gonna spill the beans now?”

Dimitri blinks the stars from his eyes, turning his head away stubbornly. “You can’t make me.”

“Um, excuse me?” Suzy crosses her arms, the energy rope remaining wound around her hand. “I am the  _ master _ of getting people to tell me about secrets.”

“Yeah, by blackmailing them,” Dimitri snipes. “You don’t have anything on me.”

Suzy blinks. “Really? Not even...” she trails off, frowning thoughtfully in a vaguely downward direction before looking back up after a moment with a conniving smirk. “Not even the fact that you used to be in the Activity Club?”

“Not really a secret,” Dimitri says, shifting in his binding to brace his legs against the bars. “I would’ve told if you’d asked, it just never came up.”

“But what about—” Suzy starts, before she falls silent, her words caught in her throat.

“...Are you okay?” Dimitri asks after a moment of her standing there staring into space with her mouth still half open, like a buffering video.

Suzy’s mouth clicks shuts and she looks away, scratching the back of her head with a sheepish grin. “I was hoping I’d come up with something before finishing the sentence.”

Dimitri’s expression goes flat. “Of course.”

“B-but all that aside!” Suzy snaps back into intimidation mode, leaning forward to stare at Dimitri. “I’ve still got you stuck here at my mercy! Even if I can’t blackmail you, I’ve still got a whole host of other interrogation tactics—”

“What do you think Isabel would do if she happened to see this?” Dimitri asks out of the blue, bringing Suzy’s thought process to a halt.

“I— what? Isabel?” Suzy stutters, leaning back. “What’s this all about? Isabel has nothing to do with this.”

“I’m just saying, what do you think she’d do?” Dimitri repeats, staring right into Suzy’s eyes unflinchingly.

She looks away after barely a second. “I dunno, she’d be mad? Probably try to… I dunno, punch me? And then be all weirdly smiley while she tells me how disappointed she is in me.”

“And how would you feel then?” Dimitri asks.

Suzy opens her mouth to answer, then blinks and glares at him. “Hey, quit trying to change the subject! Isabel has nothing to do with this!”

“Hey, if you’re allowed to prod at uncomfortable subjects, so am I,” Dimitri says, swaying back and forth. Suzy glares and tugs sharply on the rope, jolting Dimitri up and disrupting his balance.

“What do mean,  _ uncomfortable subjects?!” _ Suzy spits, and perhaps if this were a visual medium like a comic or an anime she’d be backlit by the torturous flames of hell. As it is, sparrow hops along the pavement behind her, only a little startled by her voice. “Isabel isn’t an uncomfortable subject  _ you’re _ an uncomfortable subject we’re not talking about her!”

“I dunno, you seem pretty uncomfortable talking about her right now,” Dimitri comments, a relaxed smirk on his face as Suzy fumes. “So yeah, let’s talk more about Isabel.”

“No!”

“I noticed you picked up energy constructs pretty fast,” Dimitri says, ignoring Suzy’s snarling fury. “They’re still pretty shaky, but god knows I couldn’t pick up something as solid as this in less than a week. How’d you do it? Did you get some… private tutoring, maybe?”

“ _ No! _ ” Suzy snaps, reaching with one hand to grab Dimitri by the front of his shirt while the other arm snaps back to pull on the rope. Dimitri can’t hide the wince as the energy digs into his arms, but he still manages to meet Suzy’s eyes dead-on. “There is nothing going on between me and Isabel, I don’t  _ care _ about Isabel at all,  _ we’re not going to talk about Isabel! _ Got it?!”

Dimitri just looks at her for a moment, totally unruffled even as her breath comes in heavy heaves, and then he shrugs. “Sure, fine by me. I’ll just be on my way, then.”

Suzy blinks, opening her mouth to ask just how he plans to do that, before movement in her peripheral vision makes her glance down. Her eyes widen at the sight of Dimitri’s energy flaring over her rope, overriding the pink in its wake and leaving it orange instead— reflexively, she releases her hold on both Dimitri and the rope, letting him drop to his feet as she steps back.

“What— How the heck did you do that?” Suzy asks, watching as Dimitri casually waves away the remaining wisps of energy.

“Just a little trick I picked up a while ago,” Dimitri says, turning away, “I’ve had a lot more time to learn, after all. Seeya.”

“Bu— wait! You can’t just—” she starts, realizing the futility of it halfway through the sentence and not bothering to finish.  _ Like he’ll just give it up now. _

Dimitri, however, is not privy to the inner workings of her mind, and so doesn’t catch all the underlying meaning behind her stopping mid-sentence. “Oh yeah? Watch me,” he taunts, before leisurely walking away.

Suzy watches him go. For a long moment, even after he’s vanished from her vision, she just stands there.  _ You could still catch up to him, _ some part of her whispers.  _ You don’t have to give up just yet. _

She turns around and walks back into the school.

 

* * *

 

_ Stupid, stupid, stupid, _ Suzy’s mind growls at her, putting a scowl on her face as she jabs at her salad with just a little too much aggression.  _ Why are you letting this bother you so much? You said it yourself, you don’t care about Isabel. It doesn’t matter that Collin thinks you have a crush on her, or that Eraserhead thinks you’re in denial about having a crush on her, or that her eyes get this really pretty metallic sheen to them in right light… _

The prongs of her fork shriek as they scrape along the tray at just the wrong angle, making everyone at the same table wince and cover their ears— so, in other words, just Collin.  _ What did I just say?! I don’t care about Isabel! I don’t give two… hecking darns about Isabel, I never did, so why the heck am I so hung up on that?! _

“Sheesh, what’d that lettuce ever do to you?” Collin asks, snapping Suzy out of her reverie. “Did it eat Dimitri, and now you’re taking revenge? Is that why he didn’t show up for lunch this time?”

Suzy glares at Collin, then finally lifts her fork to take a mouthful of slightly shredded leaves.  _ Needs more dressing, _ part of her muses, before she swallows it and flicks the end of her fork in Collin’s direction. “No, Collin, that’s not what happened at all. Geez, do you even know me? I wouldn’t be taking revenge for it getting that lazybones out of my hair. I’d be  _ thanking _ it.”

Collin raises an eyebrow. “Oh, so you two got in a fight, then?”

Her only response is a huff, dropping her chin onto her hand and going back to glaring at her salad and stabbing at it. “I just don’t get why it’s such a big deal,” she finally says, eating another mouthful of bland lettuce before continuing. “I mean gosh, I already know most of the story, what’s all the fuss about giving me the rest of it? It can’t even be that important, can it?”

“...Okay, you’re gonna have to clue me in here,” Collin says, pausing just before taking a bite from his apple. “Was Dee hiding something from you?”

Suzy grunts. “He used to be in the Activity Club.”

Collin blinks. “What, really? He only just told you?”

“That’s the thing, he hasn’t told me  _ squat!” _ Suzy fumes, stabbing at her salad again. “I had to hear about it from  _ Isabel, _ and now he’s even refusing to tell me why he left! It’s so frustrating!”

“I see,” Collin says, taking a bite of his apple as an opportunity to think his response over. He swallows it. “Have you considered maybe he doesn’t want to tell you because… it’s too personal?”

“Oh, not you too,” Suzy groans. “I just don’t see why it’s such a big deal!”

“Okay, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but like ninety-nine percent of people don’t like having their deepest darkest secrets aired to the entire school,” Collin snarks.

“I know that,” Suzy huffs, crossing her arms. “And I’m not even going to do that! I just wanna know because it’s  _ bugging me! _ ”

Collin shoots her a skeptical look. “Really. Another deep dark secret relating to the Activity Club, and you’re not even considering putting it in the paper.”

“...Well, okay, maybe I did consider it a little,” Suzy cedes. “But I’m not gonna now! I just wanna  _ know _ so I can move onto other things!”

“Like wooing Isabel?”

Collin ducks under the fork, letting it sail over his head and— unbeknownst to him— right into the waiting mouth of a spirit, which proceeds to happily munch on the utensil as it floats away.  _ Probably should tell someone about that poltergeist, _ half of Suzy muses, even as the other half starts making a valiant effort to spit flames.

“Okay, I get where you’re coming from,” Collin says, once Suzy runs out of allegations about his parentage to spew, “But all I’m saying is maybe,  _ just _ maybe, if you really don’t like Isabel, you could, I dunno… act like it? Instead of going out with her every other day for one thing or another.”

Suzy frowns at him. “I don’t follow.”

Collin sighs, setting down his lunch. “Okay, so here’s what I mean. Generally, when you’re quote unquote ‘friends’ with someone, a frequent pass-time is to quote unquote ‘hang out’ with them. I would imagine it’s something similar to when you barge into my house and force me to play video games with you, but with slightly more warning beforehand. You still with me here?”

“I don’t force you to play video games. Half the time you suggest them yourself,” Suzy corrects, and Collin glares at her.

“Yes, and the  _ other _ half of the time you sit on me and wave Animal Crossing in my face until I stop trying to work on my homework.”

“Feh. Semantics.” Suzy crosses her arms and leans back. “Anyway, you were saying?”

“Right. As I was saying,” Collin straightens up. “You agree that hanging out generally involves spending time at one person or another’s house, doing activities that could be considered enjoyable, or alternatively spending time together in other more neutral ground such as a cafe or a movie theater, yes?” Suzy nods. “You and Isabel have spent at least one afternoon together at her house, with her teaching you how to fight. You’ve also been to a cafe together, and seen a movie together.”

Suzy narrows her eyes. “If you’re insinuating any of that is supposed to be friendly behaviour—”

“—I am.” Collin shuts his eyes haughtily, tapping his fingers against the table in a manner clearly drilled into him by a certain series of video games about fictional lawyers. “Say what you want, but you can’t deny that your activities relating to Isabel Guerra do not line up with your supposed hatred of her. I could at least vaguely believe it last week, before you had proper contact with her, but now...”

Suzy tenses her jaw as Collin goes on, gritting her teeth so hard they might be at risk of imploding. “You don’t know,” she chokes out, “ _ what you’re talking about. _ I’m just pretending, is all! Tricking her into thinking we’re friends, so I can gather information.”

“Uh-huh. And what information have you gathered?”

“Uh...” Suzy blanks for a moment, staring vacantly into the distance, before blinking back into focus and starting to tick off fingers. “Isabel has a bad relationship with her grandfather, could kick anyone’s butt at the drop of a hat, and likes chocolate ice cream and mediocre action flicks. And as for things not directly related to her—” Collin’s mouth clicks shut on whatever he was about to say. “—I also found out from her that spirits frequently ruin films for spectrals, there’s an entire organization of spectrals that communicate through some kind of ‘dream hub’ somehow, and the aforementioned thing about Dee being in the Activity Club. That enough for you?”

Collin raises a finger, then pauses, thinks for a moment, then reluctantly lets it drop. “Alright, fine, you win. You definitely did manage to gather information.”

“Hah!”

He crosses his arms and glares Suzy’s way. “I still stand by my theory that you’re in denial. You can have a repressed crush on a girl and still have pragmatic excuses for wanting to hang out with her.”

Suzy shrugs, digging into her salad with renewed vigor. “Say whatever you want to make yourself feel better, I still came out on top of this conversation.”

“Whatever you say, Suzy.”

 

* * *

 

“Kid, you’re so in denial you practically live in Egypt.”

Eraserhead makes his presence known again as Suzy steps out of her last class for the day, science— one of the several classes she shares with Isabel. For the god-knows-how-manyth time, she ended up in a position where no matter what Isabel would remain at least slightly in her vision, and she comes out of the room boiling with rage.

The spirit at least has the good grace to vanish again long enough for Suzy to escape to a less populated part of the school at a pace  _ not _ supernaturally fast, flickering back into being on top of a bathroom stall as Suzy glares up at him. “No. We’re not talking about this.”

Eraserhead raises an eyebrow. “Aren’t we?”

“Two conversations was more than enough for one day,” Suzy grits out, fingers clenched into fists by her sides, “I’m done talking about Isabel. Pick some other topic.”

“Hmm, alright, let me think,” Eraserhead says, idly tapping the corner of his mouth before grinning down at Isabel. “Oh, I know— let’s talk about that movie we saw with Isabel. The one with the ghosts.”

Suzy raises an incredulous eyebrow. “‘We’? There’s no  _ we _ there, buddy, it was just me and Isabel.”

“I’m hitching a ride in your head, remember?” Eraserhead taps Suzy on the forehead, arm stretching out far too long before retreating when she swats at it. “I see, hear, feel, experience everything you do. Far as I’m concerned, I was there too.”

“Great, I have a metaphysical third-wheel tagging along with me everywhere I go,” Suzy mutters, grimacing. “That won’t make things awkward at all.”

“Tell me about it,” Eraserhead grouches, crossing his arms. “At least you can leave the pencil behind if you want, imagine how awkward dating would get if I was possessing you directly.”

Suzy shudders. “Ugh, that’d be a nightmare. Though Isabel would be pretty understanding, probably.”

Eraserhead smirks. “Isabel, you say.”

Suzy blinks, then goes beet red as she realizes the connection she made. “Th-that’s not! I didn’t mean— I just slipped! I didn’t mean to say Isabel in particular I mean whoever I ended up dating— would probably be understanding if I didn’t want to— because I’d want to— date someone— stop laughing!”

“That’s— that’s one heck of a slip, kid!” Eraserhead chokes out between laughs, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes— or rather, the two dimensional image of tears, given that his face is just a pair of crossed eyes and a wavy mouth drawn on the eraser. He wipes them away, the lines stretching after his finger before snapping free and sailing away into the distance like a rubber band. “Are you  _ sure _ that wasn’t deliberate? Because  _ wow—” _

“Would you shut up about that already!” Suzy snaps, clenching her fists and taking a half-step forward. “Listen, all weird slips aside, I don’t think about Isabel that way.”

Eraserhead raises an eyebrow and leans forward. “Oh? Then how do you think about her? As a friend? Acquaintance?”

“No!”

“Then what?” Eraserhead asks. “You clearly care about her in  _ some _ way, so what is it?”

“I h—” The words catch in Suzy’s throat, tongue weighing heavy in her mouth, and she wonders why.  _ Why can’t I say it? _

“Well?” Eraserhead pries after a moment, and Suzy barely thinks as she speaks.

“I  _ hate her!” _

“What?”

A new voice cuts in, ringing oddly through the half-drawn void of Eraserhead’s world. Both Suzy and her spirit turn to look, and there stands Isabel— colors flat and bright and lined with thick black ink like a cartoon, but she’s not frozen in time. She’s moving, eyes wide with— Suzy isn’t sure. Betrayal? Confusion? Hurt? She isn’t very good with feelings, she’s not sure which it is— all of them, maybe?

Suzy’s breath catches in her throat, and the world flickers into normalcy. For a split second, Isabel’s eyes remain blank orbs of light, her mouth moving too fast and making sounds Suzy can’t make out, and then she too flickers out of the trance.

“—you really feel that— You really think that way about me?” Isabel’s voice hitches, and she takes a step forward. “That can’t be true, right? You don’t seriously...”

Suzy’s mouth moves soundlessly, taking a step back and raising her arms defensively.  _ I don’t, _ part of her wants to say, warring against the part of her that wants to say  _ yes, yes, I’ve hated you since I first caught a glimpse of you and your stupid club— but that’s not true, is it? You’ve known about her since you first came to this school, you only deemed her your nemesis after the Activity Club snubbed you… _

_ What  _ do _ I think of her? _

Evidently, Suzy stays silent far too long, as Isabel steps back, face twisting oddly. “No, no, you can’t— I thought—”

Suzy moves to say something, do something, get Isabel to wait just a moment longer so Suzy can puzzle out her emotions— but Isabel moves first, spinning around on her heel and racing off. “—Wait!” Suzy finally manages, chasing after Isabel, all the while trying to piece together something to say— an apology, an explanation,  _ anything _ to make Isabel stop looking like that.

Isabel barely slows down on her way out of the building, shoving people out of her path and throwing the doors open. Suzy follows in her wake, ignoring the protests of everyone around her as she struggles to keep her eyes on Isabel’s back. The sky feels heavy, like it’s weighing down on Suzy’s every movement to keep her far behind Isabel, forcing her to struggle just to move her limbs.

Isabel reaches the bike racks and tugs hers free, leaping on it with barely a moment’s effort and pedalling away far, far too fast for Suzy to catch up. She slows to a halt, face blank— numb, perhaps, trying to process everything that just happened. Students swarm out of the school, heading towards the buses and parting around Suzy like a river around a rock, barely giving her more than a moment’s glance.

A drop of rain lands heavy on Suzy’s head, and then another, and then she turns and trudges back inside.  _ I’m an idiot. _


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up, this is the penultimate chapter! Woooo! But also the /final/ chapter has barely any words in it rn, so idk when it's gonna be able to come out? My guess is probably on a thursday sometime in May, which is what I'm aiming for, but don't hold me to that. Thanks for reading!

“I’m so stupid,” Suzy laments for the dozenth time, arms wrapped tight around Collin’s pillow as she buries her face in it. “Stupid stupid stupid!”

“Not that I disagree,” Collin says, tapping his pen against his cheek in time with the pouring rain outside as he stares blankly at the math worksheets spread across his bed, “but it got a little boring after the first fifteen minutes. You gonna actually tell me what’s wrong, or help me with my homework?”

“Stupid,” Suzy mutters into the pillow one final time, her voice muffled. “I’m so stupid.”

“Yes. You are. Is that all?”

“Mmph.” Suzy lifts her head to glare at the ceiling, eyes red and puffy. “...I seriously messed up with Isabel.”

“Oh?” Collin jots down an equation, eyeing it thoughtfully before nodding and moving onto the next one. “Did you accidentally say something that could be taken as a declaration of love, and then she returned it?”

Suzy makes a vaguely morose grunt and falls over onto her side. Collin looks up after a moment, and frowns when he sees her expression. “Okay, sorry, I won’t joke about it. What happened?”

“I told you about Eraserhead, right?”

“Pretty sure, yeah,” Collin says, setting the pen down. “Ghost possessing your pencil, which gives you the ability to erase things at the cost of occasionally getting harassed in timestop?”

“Spirit,” Suzy corrects absently, not really feeling it. “After class today, he pestered me about Isabel, going around in circles about how I feel about her, and she overheard.”

“So...” Collin frowns quizzically at her, resting his chin on his hand. “...I was right?”

“No! I said I hated her!” Suzy says, rolling upright and waving her hands around. “And then Isabel was hurt and ran off before I could explain anything— and that’s another thing, why do I even  _ want _ to explain? She’s like my arch-nemesis, I’m  _ supposed _ to hate her! She should  _ know _ I hate her, why the heck do I feel bad about saying I hate her?!”

Collin stares at her for a moment, one eyebrow raised in a skeptical look, before he sighs and crosses his arms. “Okay, hear me out.”

Suzy narrows her eyes, but nods slowly. “...I get the feeling I won’t like where this is going, but go ahead.”

“Have you considered that maybe, and I’m not speaking in absolutes here I could be absolutely wrong, but maybe...” Collin steeples his fingers and slowly, deliberately, stares directly into Suzy’s eyes. “...You don’t hate her?”

Suzy blinks at him, face blank. “Be serious.”

“I  _ am _ being serious,” Collin says, crossing his arms. “Come on, I’ve already outlined my reasoning once today, don’t tell me you forgot already?”

“I deliberately blocked the memory from my mind, on account of it being  _ complete horseradish _ ,” Suzy says, expression not so much as twitching. “I don’t have a crush on Isabel.”

“I’m not saying that this time,” Collin snipes back. “I’m just saying you  _ don’t hate her. _ Weren’t you wailing over having upset her like a minute ago? Or did you block out that memory too?”

Suzy grumbles under her breath, dropping her chin to her knees, before sighing. “Fine. Let’s say you’re right. What do I do?”

“Um, apologize? Tell her you’re sorry, and that you didn’t mean it?” Collin waves his pen vaguely in her direction. “I mean geez, you’d think this’d be obvious.”

“But I don’t know  _ how, _ ” Suzy groans, flopping down on her side again. “I can’t just go over and say ‘hey Isabel, remember what I said behind your back about how I hate you? lol jk I was just kidding lets be pals again’, she’d just slam the door in my face!”

“Well not if you say it like  _ that, _ ” Collin says, crossing his arms. “That’s not an apology. What you should do is go up to her and say ‘hey, remember what I said about hating you? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, I’ve just been really confused lately. Can we be friends again?’  _ That’s _ an apology.”

Suzy frowns thoughtfully into her legs. “...Are you sure? It couldn’t be that easy...”

“Well, no, that’s just where you start,” Collin says. “You have to figure out where to go from there, based on how Isabel responds. I’d  _ guess _ she’d accept the apology, but other than that who even knows? I don’t know everything, you know.”

“So I have to puzzle it out on my own, is what you’re saying,” Suzy says.

Collin nods, looking back down at his homework. “Yes, that’s... generally how social interaction works. When you’re actually being friendly.”

Suzy frowns thoughtfully at the wall, then rolls upright with a determined smile on her face. “Right! I can do that. Thanks for the advice, Collin!”

“You’re welcome, now can you  _ please... _ ” Collin trails off as he hears his bedroom door swing open, and looks back up just in time to see Suzy vanishing into the hall. “Hey, wait! Where are you going?!”

“To apologize to Isabel!” Suzy yells back, and Collin when Collin runs out after her he finds her pulling on her coat. “I mean, why put it off?”

“Um, did you forget about the  _ rainstorm going on right now?”  _ Collin asks, and a muffled boom punctuates his sentence. He winces. “Make that a thunderstorm. Are you crazy?”

“Thunderstorm schmunderstorm,” Suzy says, zipping up her coat and grabbing an umbrella. “I know my way around, Collin, I’ll be fine.”

“I’m not saying you’ll get lost, I’m saying you’re gonna get soaked— Suzy you useless lesbian  _ get back here! _ ”

A few droplets of rain find their way through the now-open door to flick Collin in the face, blown in by the wind that Suzy seems undaunted by. “Seeya later, Collin!” she calls back, giving a short wave before vanishing into the dark.

Collin hovers at the edge of the door for a moment, torn between waiting it out in the warmth of the house or chasing after her into the rain. A moment later though, he sighs, shuts the door, and starts digging through the closet.

 

* * *

 

Isabel isn’t quite sure why she’s here in the junkyard, curled up on a bench under what she can only guess is some sort of abstract art with her umbrella folded under her shoulder and her phone blaring some pop song as she waits out the storm. It’s not like it’s a usual hangout spot or anything, nearly all her memories of it involve pedaling past it on the way to and from school, never giving it more than a passing glance.

_ Then again, that’s only nearly all of them, isn’t it? _ If she turned her head, she’s sure she’d be able to see through the rain to the hollowed out husk of a rusted old car, lines scored into the sides where a dragon struggled to escape. She’s not moping, exactly, just sitting and staring into the dark grey sky like it’ll give her some answers.

_ I could’ve misheard, _ part of her muses. That part of her is summarily cast out by the rest of her, noting that she was standing ten feet away in an otherwise-quiet bathroom listening to Suzy yell at her spirit about something-or-other. Doesn’t matter.

_ How do you even know she was still talking about you? _ Another part says.  _ Sure, she mentioned you by name before that, but you only heard one side of the conversation. It could’ve easily taken another turn at some point. _

This idea gets a little more consideration.  _ Yes, _ she decides,  _ Suzy’s spirit must have said something to change the subject, and I was just misinterpreting. Nothing worth worrying over. _

It’s easier than trying to puzzle out why Suzy would say she hates her.

A blue spirit with a few too many legs skitters along the huge puddle in front of Isabel, followed closely by a stream of smaller versions of itself— its children, maybe. It’s hard to tell, though, considering how well ordinary logic applies to spirits. For a while, Isabel entertains herself watching them dance along the surface of the rain-churned water, tracing intricate patterns in time to Isabel’s music, and as the song comes to a close the spirits slide to a stop in front of Isabel and… she’s guessing that’s a bow, based on context.

Again, it’s hard to tell.

Isabel claps gently. “That was a very nice performance,” she says, leaning down to talk to the spirit with a smile. “Did you improvise all that? Because if so, I’m really impressed!”

The spirit blinks all seven of its eyes out of sync, then looks away and rubs at the back of its head with an embarrassed flare of energy. It seems like it’s going to respond in some way, but before it can something splashes into the puddle and startles it into scurrying away.

Looking up, Isabel is more surprised by how  _ unsurprised _ she is to see Suzy there, ten feet away and getting her sneakers soaked through as she closes the distance.

“Why am I not surprised to find you here?” Suzy asks, stopping halfway through the puddle and adjusting her grip on her umbrella. “I mean, logically I  _ should _ be surprised to find you in the first arbitrary place I checked. But here you are.”

“I dunno, I went here completely arbitrarily too,” Isabel says, sitting back up. “Maybe it was aliens.”

“Hah, yeah, right,” Suzy says, amused. Isabel doesn’t drop the serious expression on her face, though, and after a moment Suzy frowns worriedly. “Wait, could it actually be aliens? Is that a thing that happens?”

Isabel laughs. “No, no, I’m just messing with you. If there are actual aliens out there, I’ve never met them.”

Suzy breathes an exaggerated sigh of relief. “Oh thank god, I have a bet running with Collin on that and I can’t afford to lose those Starchman Stars.”

“What, you don’t think aliens are real?” Isabel raises an eyebrow. “Doesn’t sound like you.”

“Oh no, we both believe in aliens alright,” Suzy says, waving hand dismissively, “I just don’t think we’re gonna get conclusive evidence on where they are before we’re at  _ least _ fifty.”

“Playing the long game. That’s pretty ambitious of you.”

Suzy laughs. “Yeah, I guess so.”

For a moment, silence falls between them, a haunting woodwind refrain echoing out from Isabel’s phone before she shuts it off. “Hey, come sit down,” she finally says. “It’s better than standing out there in the puddle.”

“Oh, right.” Suzy trots over, the water sloshing in her wake and barely having the chance to form ripples before it’s mercilessly churned up by the rain. She sits down neatly, folding up her umbrella and placing it by her side.

Silence falls again, making the inches between the two girls feel like a mile. After a moment spent staring into the mud, Isabel chances a look up at Suzy and finds her staring determinedly into the rain. She can still make out the swelling of yesterday’s bruise, covered up with concealer but still barely visible in how it affects the contours of Suzy’s face.

Isabel lets her gaze drop again. “Hey, about—”

“I didn’t mean what I said,” Suzy blurts out before Isabel can finish, making her look up sharply— Suzy’s still not facing her. “In the bathroom I mean. I mean, I don’t  _ think _ I meant it— I mean I don’t know everything’s still confusing and I don’t know but I don’t  _ think _ I hate you.”

Isabel blinks. “...That’s… not what I was going to ask, but okay. That’s… good to hear?”

Finally, Suzy turns to look Isabel in the eye, eyes wide and head tilted slightly. “It’s not? I would’ve figured that’d be the first thing to come up. It was sure bothering  _ me _ the whole way here.”

“Well, it was kinda bothering me a little, but I figured I was just missing part of the story.” Isabel crosses her arms, then recrosses them the other way around. “I was gonna ask about your phone, actually. It’s not having any problems like, I dunno overheating, is it?”

“Oh, no, it’s fine. Just as good as before it got soaked.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“Mm.” Suzy shifts a little, reaching up to fidget with the pencil behind her ear. A barely-visible wisp of energy flickers around her hand, vanishing as fast as it appears, and Isabel frowns.

_ She still lets off so little spectral energy, _ she muses, shifting her hold on her umbrella.  _ I wonder why? Subconscious energy output tends to be attached to strong emotions, but she clearly feels plenty… _

“Say, Isabel, what do you think of me?” Suzy asks, jolting Isabel out of her thoughts.

She blinks. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, like...” Suzy waves her hand around vaguely. “What do you think of when you look at me? What am I to you?”

“Well, I like you,” Isabel says, tilting her head. “I guess you kinda count as my student, with the whole teaching you how to fight thing. And when I look at you… I dunno, but right now you’re kinda pinging as incredibly cryptic and weird.”

“Hmm. I see,” Suzy says, voice vaguely distant.

Isabel shifts closer. “Hey, c’mon, you can’t just ask a question like that and leave it there. Why d’you wanna know?”

“I’m just curious, is all,” Suzy says, and Isabel frowns.

“Come on, there’s gotta be more to it. What do you think of me? You think of me as a friend too, right? Suzy?”

“I don’t know!” Suzy snaps back, pushing Isabel away. “I don’t know how I feel about you, that’s why I’m asking, I figured maybe that’d help but I  _ told _ you I don’t know! I’m still— I’m still so confused...”

Isabel looks at her for a moment, then tentatively puts a hand on Suzy’s shoulder. “...Okay, maybe you should start with why you’d say you… hate me. If you’re up for it?”

Suzy grunts quietly into her hands, but doesn’t try to escape Isabel’s hand. “...It was the start of sixth grade,” she finally says, “My first assignment as a new member of the journalism club was to write an article about all the school clubs, so I went and interviewed all the clubs, figured out their purposes, meeting times, number of members, stuff like that.”

_ Oh. I think I remember that, actually, _ Isabel thinks, blinking slowly.

Suzy isn’t finished, though. “The only one I couldn’t get anything on was the Activity Club, and I kinda felt like it was my fault I couldn’t complete the article, you know? I got everything else, but all I had on the Activity Club was its name. And since you seemed like kinda the main person in there, I kinda… I dunno, focused all my frustration about it on this idea of you. I actually declared you my arch-nemesis, if you can believe it.”

Isabel laughs. “Well, that does sound like you,” she says, returning her hand to her side. “Pretty silly if you ask me, considering we’d… never talked, I think? I might be forgetting...”

“We’d talked once,” Suzy corrects, uncovering her face. “It wasn’t much of a conversation, honestly, you seemed pretty distracted at the time. I think. It was ages ago, though, so I dunno...”

“Yeah, the first time I really remember us actually talking was after the thing with the stairs, which...” Isabel blinks. “Come to think of it, you were acting pretty shy then, weren’t you? What was up with that?”

“Uh...” Suzy’s face goes blank. “I dunno. I didn’t know how to talk to you without giving away that I may have pushedCollindownthestairs.”

“You what?!”

“In my defense!” Suzy crosses her arms heatedly, turning away like it’ll protect her, “I waited to do it until both of you were right by the landing, so the worst you’d get would be a few bruises!”

“You pushed your friend down the stairs!” Isabel shrieks. “And me! Indirectly! That’s… what do I even say to that?!”

“Hey, hey.” Suzy looks back at Isabel with a reproachful look. “Collin isn’t my friend. He’s my  _ assistant. _ There’s a difference.”

“Oh, like that makes it any better,” Isabel huffs. “Honestly, why did you even do that?”

Suzy shrugs. “Made for a pretty good ice breaker, didn’t it?”

“Yes, and it had the potential to be a pretty good  _ neck _ breaker too.” Isabel heaves a sigh, crossing her arms and leaning back against the back of the bench. “Okay. Setting that aside… what changed?”

“Well, I… started actually talking to you?” Suzy shrugs. “And then I started seeing things, and that kinda made me realise you all had reasons for hiding your club’s purpose— poorly explained reasons, mind you, but reasons. And then you giving me sparring lessons kinda forced me to keep being all buddy-buddy, and now I don’t think I really hate you anymore? But also I have no idea what’s going on anymore.”

Isabel stares at her for a long moment, narrowing her eyes. “...Okay, there’s a decent chance I’m not really an expert on the matter, so feel free to take this with as many grains of salt as you want,” she starts, uncrossing her arms to point firmly at Suzy, “but it sounds to me like we’re friends. And you think of me as a friend. So, what’s all the confusion over?”

Suzy shuts her eyes, exhaling slowly through her nose and rubbing at her temples. “...Collin thinks I have a crush on you,” she says, ignoring the odd noise Isabel makes in response. “My  _ spirit _ thinks I have a crush on you. Max Puckett, who can barely stand to look at me without immediately snarking about how much he doesn’t want to look at me? Thinks I have a crush on you.”

Isabel blinks. “What, you don’t?”

“Seriously? You too?!”

Isabel shrugs helplessly. “I dunno, it seemed pretty obvious to me! It’s part of why I was even able to ask you out yesterday, it was so obvious you’d say yes!”

“I don’t— wait, you asked me out? Like, on a date?” Suzy’s outrage grinds to a halt. “When did that happen?”

“Uh, the movie?” Isabel gives Suzy an incredulous look. “I asked if you wanted to go see a movie? And you said yes? Did you seriously forget?”

“Well, no, we did see that movie, I remember that,” Suzy says, frowning. “It’s just. Was that a date? Does that count as a date?”

“I’m pretty sure it does, yeah.” Isabel crosses her arms and dials up the incredulity. “I sure intended it as a date, and I don’t really get how you managed to miss that.”

“Did you?” Suzy asks absently, already thinking back to when Isabel asked her if she wanted to come see the movie with her.  _ She was blushing a little, and kinda rambling, and Collin immediately left as soon as he saw where it was going like he didn’t want to get in the way… _

Suzy slaps her forehead. “Ah, shoot, that  _ was _ a date, wasn’t it?”

Isabel gives her a wry smile.  _ “Now _ you get it? Sheesh, why did I decide to give an oblivious person like you a shot anyway?”

“Because I’m cute and write good articles?” Suzy suggests, eyes wide and innocent.

Isabel snorts. “I dunno, jury’s still out on the second one.”

“Come on!” Suzy whines, going to hit Isabel before pausing. “Wait. So you’re saying I am cute, though?”

“Mm-hm.” Isabel nods.

Suzy’s face lights up and she tries to hide it in her coat, which just makes Isabel laugh. “That’s just proving my point even more, you know,” Isabel says lightly. “You’re like a little pink turtle in a shell.”

“Mmgph,” Suzy grunts before finally raising her head again and narrowing her eyes. “No you.”

Isabel raises an eyebrow. “Are you calling me a turtle? Because considering my spirit, that’s pretty appropriate.”

Suzy tilts her head to the side. “Oh? Why’s that?”

“Nothing really special, honestly,” Isabel says, shrugging, “It’s just my umbrella’s possessed by a turtle with the ability to flip things.”

“Oh.” Suzy blinks. “Wait, is that why you’ve always got that umbrella on you, even when the weather’s perfectly clear? Cause that explains a lot.”

“Pff, yeah, I guess it does look pretty weird from an outside perspective,” Isabel says, kicking up a small spray off the puddle. “At least now it’s pretty appropriate.”

“Eh, not for much longer it won’t be,” Suzy says, shielding her eyes as she squints up at the sky. “Pretty sure it’s starting to lighten up.”

Isabel leans forward and looks up at the sky, giving Suzy a curious glance. “You think so? It still seems pretty heavy right now.”

“Eh, I dunno, probably,” Suzy says, waving a hand vaguely. “I’m no meteorologist, I’m just pretty sure I heard somewhere that really heavy rain doesn’t stick around for long unless it’s like, a hurricane or something. And we’re way too far inland for a hurricane. So.”

“I guess that makes sense.” Isabel leans back, still staring thoughtfully at the sky, and then she speaks up again. “Hey, once this rain does let up, d’you wanna come over by my place?”

“What, like for more training?”

“Well, I mean, if you  _ want _ to,” Isabel says shrugging. “I was more thinking video games though. I’m not sure we’ve actually gotten to just casually hang out yet, without any ulterior motives or anything.”

Suzy considers the offer for a long moment, weighing the pros and cons and finally finding the cons vastly underwhelming. “You know, I think I might like that. What games do you have?”

Isabel smiles like the sun. “Well, there’s this fighting game Ed likes...”

 

* * *

 

Lurking behind a pile of trash, Collin breathes a small sigh when he sees Isabel and Suzy break into grins and start chattering about something he can’t make out from this distance. “I guess I didn’t need to step in,” he mutters, toying with the edge of his raincoat. “That’s good. Maybe with a girlfriend Suzy’ll stop pestering me to do weird research projects for her.”

He turns to leave, then pauses, shakes his head, and continues on his way.  _ Nah, that’ll never happen. _

High above, the sun finally breaks through the clouds. There’s a loud splash, a shriek of laughter, and Collin picks up the pace.  _ Sounds like Suzy pushing Isabel into a giant puddle. Better not get involved in that. _


	20. (Epilogue)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well it's not a thursday but it's still may, so i'd say that was a success

The headline for this week’s school newspaper is ‘Local Journalist’s Girlfriend Is Super Hecking Cute and Strong?'

The article is plastered with pictures of Isabel, a quarter of which contain a cat in some way, and Collin still isn’t convinced this isn’t some ruse by Suzy to get around the ‘no articles about cats’ rule. The article itself is no different, apart from the cats. It’s nearly an entire page’s worth of gushing about how amazing Isabel is at everything, from video games to arm wrestling and everything up to but not including keeping her cool around dogs— but everyone needs some weakness, and this journalist can see where she’s coming from, can’t you?

“You only even realized you were dating last Monday,” Dimitri comments bemusedly as he scans the article and circles three grammar errors just within the first paragraph. “I thought you’d gotten all this out after the first round of excited texting?”

“Pshaw, rambling on and on about a cute girlfriend never gets old,” Suzy says, flopping her hand around dismissively. “You’re just jealous.”

“No, I’m amused.” He underlines a typo. “Also fearful for your future prospects, if this is how you write about things you’re genuinely invested in.”

Suzy glares. “Are you implying I’m not always totally invested in my work?”

“Eh.”

Suzy throws an eraser at his head. Dimitri casually tilts his head out of the way and continues. “But hey, aside from all the typos, this is actually a pretty good interview-type-article or whatever they’re called. You  _ did _ get Isabel’s permission for this, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, quit worrying about it, she was delighted,” Suzy says, exasperated. “Geez, why do you have to keep asking?”

“Just making sure you’re keeping honest.”

Suzy blows him a raspberry.

Any witty comeback Dimitri may have had to that is cut off by the sound of someone knocking on the door to the Journalism Club room. Suzy and Dimitri blink and glance at each other for a moment, before Suzy sits up and steeples her fingers on the desk. “Yes, come in!”

The door cracks open and Isabel steps through, a bag slung over her shoulder as she gives Suzy a sheepish grin. “Hey, Suzy, I’m just popping in to say I can’t stick around at school right now. Some club activity came up, and I gotta run.”

Suzy blinks, then laughs and waves it off. “No, no, it’s fine, I don’t mind. Actually, do you mind if I tag along? I’ve been wanting to have a proper look at how your operations go from an internal perspective.”

Isabel shrugs. “I mean, sure, if you wanna. Hey, Danger, you cool with me kidnapping your boss?”

“Well, she’s the one who suggested it, so I dunno if it really counts as kidnapping in this case,” Dimitri says, not looking up. “You two have fun, though.”

“We will!”

 

* * *

 

“...And it was the most super unnecessarily dramatic teen drama, too!” Nin complains, carefully running her blades along the edge of Lefty’s nails like a nail clipper, getting them trimmed down neat as can be. “Like, we get it, kid, you had a small scuffle with your school pal. No need to take it out on the furniture.”

“Oh man, I totally hear you,” another Nin says,  uncapping a bottle of ghost nail polish. “Wasn’t there also that one time he went and moped around about his friend being too busy with other friends, and then it turned out they were perfectly happy to let him join in?”

“Ugh, yeah.” The first Nin pauses to rub at the bridge of her nose. “Honestly, he needs to find a better outlet for his anger.”

Lefty shifts, gently removing himself from Nin’s paws to flash a few quick signs.

Nin blinks, then shrugs. “I dunno, really,” the first one says, returning to clipping his nails. “Doormy just kinda started letting him hang out, something about teaching him to tame the storm within. If it were me, I’d just tell him to sort that stuff out on his own...”

 

* * *

 

“So. Howsaboutit.”

Eraserhead doesn’t react to Suzy’s voice, except perhaps to drive his hand more firmly into his chin in a petulant sulk. It’s only after nearly a minute of her tapping her foot impatiently that he finally relents.

“Don’t you have a spirit you’re supposed to be stalking?” he asks.

“Isabel’s got that,” Suzy says, resting her hands on her hips. “I’m just here to keep an eye on the exits. So? What’ll it be?”

Eraserhead grunts, slumping deeper into his arms. “...Fine, you win,” he mutters into his hand.

Suzy lights up with a sharp grin. “Sorry, didn’t quite catch that.”

“You win, alright?” Eraserhead snaps. “I was wrong, you did admit to having a crush on Isabel. You’ve been lording this over me for two days, you win, now will you please lay off already?”

“Nah,” Suzy says, beaming. “Not until you hold up your end of the bargain.”

“I really didn’t think you’d do it,” Eraserhead mutters again, crossing his arms.

Suzy crosses her arms right back. “Well, you were totes wrong, and now you’ve gotta keep your word. What’s your real name, buster?”

“I don’t really have one.”

Those words hang in the air for a long moment, gears turning fruitlessly in Suzy’s head without managing to touch each other, and then she tilts her head. “Huh?”

“I mean, spirits don’t always have the sort of parent-child familial units you humans have,” Eraserhead says, shrugging. “Either we start existing knowing our names already, or we pick one ourselves based on our powers, and I just didn’t bother. It’s not like I really hung out with other spirits or anything.”

Suzy blinks. “So. Wait. You don’t actually have a name?”

“Nope. Not unless you count the silly nickname you gave me, at least.”

“Huh.” Suzy lifts her glasses up to rub at her eyes, readjusts them on the bridge of her nose. She rests a hand on her chin in thought, then takes a deep breath. “Then why the  _ heck _ did you say you’d tell it to me if I went along with your dang bet?!”

“I really didn’t think you’d admit it!”

“Seriously?! You making that silly gamble with me is probably at least twenty percent of the reason I was even able to accept it!”

“You just seemed that stubborn!”

“Self-defying prophecies, Eraserhead!”

“That—” Eraserhead starts, before freezing, thinking it over for a moment, and slowly resting his face in his hands. “Alright, fine, you’re right. Are you done yet?”

Suzy shrugs. “I mean, yeah, as long as you’ve accepted that everything I say and do is right and you’re totes wrong.”

“No promises.”

“Anyway, what am I supposed to call you then?” Suzy asks. “Should I just keep sticking with Eraserhead, or…?”

Eraserhead waves a hand dismissively. “Sure, whatever. It doesn’t really matter.”

“Hey, names can be pretty important in my experience,” Suzy says, crossing her arms. “I mean, if someone were named Raven or something you’d probably assume—”

Halfway through Suzy’s tangent, the world floods back to normalcy. “Oh, come on!”

 

* * *

 

“I’m just saying, just based on aesthetics, Xurkitree  _ really _ doesn’t look like a real pokemon,” Collin argues, shifting the cards around in his hands. “It looks like someone some wise guy on the internet photoshopped into a tongue-in-cheek parody of fake pokemon leaks, except it’s totally real.”

“I dunno, I don’t really see it,” Cody says, staring intently at his own cards. “Got any threes?”

“Go fish.”

“Dangit,” Cody mutters under his breath as he flips the uppermost card to find a king. “Hey, on another subject, how’s the club been lately? Anything you can tell me about the next article?”

“Ugh, is there ever,” Collin groans. “Well, Suzy’s really enthusiastic about this one, that’s for sure. I couldn’t stand to listen to her ramble on about it for another hour, which is why I’m here in the first place.”

Cody winces. “That bad, huh?”

“Don’t I know it. Got any kings?”

Cody hands over his newly acquired card with a rueful grin, but is interrupted before he can say anything. “Hey,” Violet says, wiping down the bar with a cloth. “Do you think you two could pipe down a little? I’m trying to talk to a customer.”

“Oh, it’s no bother, really,” Lisa says, swirling a glass of some thick red liquid— probably (hopefully) juice. “I can tune them out just fine.”

Collin places his cards down with a thump and glares at them. “Okay, this is the third time you two have switched places while I wasn’t looking, how are you doing that?”

Lisa just tilts her head quizzically. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about? I’m merely a humble customer of this esteemed school store, talking with the bartender, Violet.”

Violet just nods silently, switching to cleaning out a glass, and Collin groans. “No one else is even in here, you’re actively antagonizing me.”

“They could be trying to antagonize me too,” Cody points out, shuffling his hand.

“Are you feeling antagonized?” Collin asks, eyebrow raised, and after a moment Cody shakes his head. “Didn’t think so.”

Cody opens his mouth to reply, but he’s interrupted by the door slamming open. “Catch it catch it catch it!” Suzy screeches, scrambling across the room and knocking over furniture as she goes, followed closely by Isabel. She lands wrong on a chair, slips, and brings both of them toppling facedown to the floor.

Collin winces and gets up to go check on them. “You okay there, Suzy?”

Suzy fails to respond, and after a second Collin leans down to nudge her. Suzy picks this moment to animate, hands snapping up to grab Collin by his collar and pull him close. “Collin! Did you see it? Which way did it go?!”

“Wha— see what?” Collin asks, attempting to pry Suzy’s fingers off. “You two just came haring in here like cats chasing dust mites, what are you doing?”

“Ghost hunting!”

“Spirit, technically,” Isabel mutters from the floor, peeling herself off of it. “He can’t help, Suzy, he can’t see them. Let’s just give up on that one.”

“Come on, we were so close this time!” Suzy whines, releasing Collin and looking pleadingly at Isabel. “Just one more try?”

Isabel laughs. “Alright, one more go, if we can find it again.”

The two girls pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and take off back outside. Cody, Violet, and Lisa stare at Collin, Lisa narrowing her eyes and murmuring something Collin can’t quite make out,  _ (Something something one of these days? What?) _ and then after a moment Cody asks, “What was all that about?”

Collin coughs, straightening out his collar, and shrugs. “Isabel’s really gotten Suzy into ghost hunting?”

Violet hums. “Didn’t think she was the type,” she muses, returning to nursing the overly sugary drink in her hand.

“Who? Suzy or Isabel?” Lisa asks from behind the bar, polishing a glass.

“Isabel,” Violet clarifies. “This is exactly the sorta junk Suzy would get into.”

Collin nods, moving to return to his seat before jolting to a stop and snapping his gaze back to Violet and Lisa. “Okay,  _ seriously _ you guys?!”

 

* * *

 

“So,” Max starts, sitting backwards in one of the many chairs floating weightlessly in this haunted classroom. “How’s Isabel been on the Suzy front?”

Ed frowns. “What do you mean?” he asks, attempting to doggy-paddle through the air and making little headway.

“I mean, like, Suzy’s been doing nothing but brag at me about how much she loves her new girlfriend whenever we somehow end up within twenty feet of each other,” Max says, waving a hand vaguely, “So I guess I’m just wondering if Isabel’s been that kinda overbearingly gay to you?”

“Hm.” Ed twists in the air to adjust his glasses at Max, giving an exaggeratedly thoughtful frown. “Nah, Izzy’s been pretty quiet on the girlfriend front. I have to actively prod her to get her to start bragging. Got any deets from Suzy’s rants?”

“No, I automatically tune them out as a defence mechanism,” Max snarks. “Besides, even if I did remember any of them, isn’t it kinda rude to spread information on someone you got from their significant other raving about how amazing they are?”

“All’s fair in love and prank wars, buddy.”

“Well, I’m not gonna get involved in your silly sibling rivalry thing,” Max says, turning away with a huff. “Have fun finding out on your own, or whatever. Actually, I bet Suzy’d love to tell you all about it herself. Why don’t you ask her?”

Ed blinks behind his glasses, then hums. “That didn’t occur to me.”

“Naturally.”

The door slams open to admit Suzy, followed closely by Isabel— who happens to have a snake-weasel-thing writhing in her arms and struggling to escape. “Cavalry’s here!” Suzy calls, as Isabel finally manages to hold the spirit up in the air.

With a flare of mauve energy, gravity reasserts itself in the room and everything comes crashing to the floor. Max picks himself off the ground, groaning, and glares up at the two girls. “Did you have to be so rough?” he asks, adjusting his hat.

“Sorry,” Isabel says, finally letting go of the spirit and letting it retreat over her shoulder and through a wall. “This was the only appropriate spirit we could catch.”

“It was my idea,” Suzy chirps, trotting over to Max and leaning over him. “We went looking for another gravity control spirit first, but we couldn’t find any, and then I figured ‘hey what if we find something that can just cancel powers instead?’ And now here you are.”

“It’s not that I’m not unthankful it was you who saved us,” Max mutters, “But are you sure you couldn’t have done it any faster?”

“Sorry, but it was really tough,” Isabel says, helping Ed up. “Turns out its powers also disrupted spectral energy, so we had to catch it the old-fashioned way. I think everyone who was still in the building thinks we’re all a bunch of lunatics.”

“Since when did they not?” Max snarks, shoving his hands in his pockets. “So? What’re we gonna do now? We gonna go chasing after the spirit that did this, or nah?”

Isabel shrugs. “I dunno, I’ve seen a lot of spirit activity, and this seemed more like a one-off kinda deal. We can go investigating if it keeps happening, but for now I kinda just wanna go home.”

“Yeah, same,” Max says, stretching and following the rest of them out the door. “I think Isaac went home early, too, lucky jerk. He didn’t have to deal with any weird ghost nonsense.”

Outside the nearest window, Isaac blurs into the sky, pursued by a brilliant sunset-colored lion. Max sighs. “Why do I even bother talking?”

“D’you think we should help him?” Isabel asks, craning her neck in an attempt to follow the scene.

Ed hums, pressing himself up against the glass. “Uh… nah, I think he’s got it. We can go.”

“You sure?” Isabel squints. “Kinda hard to make out any details from this distance.”

“Yeah, they’re cool. See, they’re coming back down now.”

Sure enough, a moment later the lion comes crashing back down to earth, Isaac barely clinging to its mane and crackling with electricity. The lion runs a lap around the school grounds, occasionally kicking and bucking like an irate horse, before finally it slows to a stop and twists its head around to sniff at Isaac.

The spectrals still in the school watch this for a long moment, before Max turns and starts wandering away. “Well, if everything’s cool over there, I’m gonna head home. Don’t die while I’m gone or whatever.”

“Don’t worry, we won’t,” Isabel says, waving goodbye. She watches him go for a moment, then turns to grin at Suzy. “So, Suzy—”

“I am so jealous of Isaac right now,” Suzy says, forehead rested against the glass. Her eyes are fixed on the ground below, watching as Isaac administers scratches under the lion’s chin and behind its years. “God, I wish that were me.”

Isabel follows her gaze, stares for a moment, then rests a hand on Suzy’s shoulder. “If we run, we can probably make it down there before he’s done.”

Suzy lifts her head to meet Isabel’s gaze, eyes wide, and then they both nod.

In a blur of movement and glowing eyes, Ed is left in the dust. He sighs, shoves his hands in his pockets and starts trudging after them. “Yeah, sure, leave me behind, see if I care.”

 

* * *

 

Suzy trudges out of the school gates dejected, downtrodden, and covered in cat hair.

“It’s okay, Suzy, you’ll get him next time,” Isabel assures, wrapping an arm around Suzy’s shoulders. “None of us knew that spirit’d vanish at sunset, y’know?”

“But how d’you know there’ll  _ be _ another time?” Suzy whines, leaning into Isabel’s chest. “What if that’s the last time that spirit will ever appear, and I’ve lost my only chance?”

“Then we’ll find you a different magic cat to pet,” Isabel offers. “I’ve seen a pretty good stack of spirit cats around, d’you think that’d do?”

Suzy sniffs. “I’ve already pet that one,” she mutters. “And also the jelly cat that hangs out near where Isaac hides when he doesn’t wanna hang out with the rest of us, and—”

“Okay, okay, you’ve already pet most of the cats in Mayview, I get it,” Isabel says. “But still, don’t beat yourself up over  _ one _ missed opportunity. There’s still plenty more cats in the ocean.”

“No there aren’t, cats don’t like water,” Suzy quips, pushing Isabel away.

Isabel pushes her right back. “Nuh-uh, I’ve met a cat that loved water! Plus, aren’t there those fishing cats or whatever?”

“Pbbbbth, I don’t believe you,” Suzy says, blowing a raspberry before crossing her arms. “And fishing cats don’t count.”

“Oh, so you consider a magic spirit lion a cat, but not a specific species of wildcat.”

“Uh-huh.” Suzy turns her nose up in the air, attempting to look snobbish but failing to mask a burgeoning grin. “I have very particular ideals for what constitutes a proper feline.”

“You’re a nerd is what you are,” Isabel says.

“I am not!” Suzy protests, aiming a punch at Isabel’s arm and hitting nothing but air.

“Are too!” Isabel steps out of the way, then bounces back to tap Suzy on the chest.

Or rather, she attempts to. Suzy twists out of the way, aiming a backhanded swat at Isabel’s nose, which Isabel responds to by ducking under it and hooking a foot around Suzy’s ankle and pulling her in. Suzy moves with it, an arm snapping out to hook around Isabel’s waist, and Isabel catches the other arm by the wrist before she’s even started moving to strike back—

“I swear, if you two start dancing right in front of the school, I’m totally tripping you,” Isaac says.

Suzy yelps and leaps away from Isabel, blushing. “How long have you been standing there!”

“I was like ten feet behind you the entire time,” Isaac says, crossing his arms. “You need to work on your perception.”

“Yeah, well— You need to be less sneaky!” Suzy sputters.

“Or what, you’ll throw another cat at me?”

“That! Was  _ one _ time!”

“Guys, guys, you’re both beautiful,” Isabel says, walking in between them. “Let’s just let bygones be bygones, what’s up Isaac? Do you need anything?”

Isaac huffs and turns away. “Nothing, I was just saying. You two go back to ballroom dancing, or whatever.”

Isabel smirks, resting a hand on her hip. “I think you’re just jealous because I’m better at getting a girlfriend than you.”

“That’s—” Isaac cuts himself off, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “Okay, first of all, that’s not really comparable. I mean, for one, you’re into girls.”

“Same difference,” Isabel mutters, and Suzy just shrugs.

“Second of all, I don’t care what you two are getting up to as long as I don’t have to watch.” Isaac starts walking. “So I’m going to leave now, and if you two want to start making out in the middle of the sidewalk, that’s your business.”

“We weren’t planning on it!” Suzy calls after him, before settling back on her heels with a huff. “Honestly, the nerve.”

“He has a point, though,” Isabel comments. “I mean, there are better places to hang out than in front of the school.”

Suzy sniffs dismissively, raising an eyebrow. “Got any ideas, then?” she asks.

Isabel shrugs. “We could go hang out at your place—”

“Got any ideas that aren’t terrible?”

Isabel gives her a wry look. “You never let me see your house,” she comments, crossing her arms and starting to make her way down the street. “Honestly, I’m starting to get the feeling you just don’t have one.”

“No, I have a house!” Suzy says, hurrying on after Isabel. “You just don’t get to see it.”

“Why not? You’ve seen mine,” Isabel points out. “And I wanna meet your weird nocturnal spirit peacock, he sounds cute.”

“He is, I named him Gerold,” Suzy agrees. “But! That’s not enough for me to let you see my house!”

“Come on, why not? What kinda secret… uh...” Isabel trails off, her eyes catching on something in the air above Suzy’s head, and she slows to a stop. “Hey, what were you complaining about missed opportunities?”

“Hm?” Suzy blinks. “Wait, like, about the lion? That I didn’t get to pet?”

“Mm hm.” Wordlessly, Isabel lifts an arm to point at the streetlight flickering on above them.

Slowly, Suzy lifts her head to look.

Balanced precariously atop the streetlight, licking itself clean like it’s lounging on a warm rock somewhere on the savanna instead of in the middle of a small town, Suzy sees a lion. This lion, as it just so happens, is shimmering with colors from gold, to pink, to purple, to blue, to black, faint stars winking into existence in its mane.

Suzy is already trying to find a way up that pole.

The third time Suzy slips and lands on her butt on the concrete, the lion just as unaware as it had been when she started, Isabel finally decides to lend a hand. “Y’know, I could probably get the lion to move—”

“No, I wanna do this myself,” Suzy insists, trying once again to shimmy her way up.

Isabel gives her a bemused look. “Well, alright, if you say so.”

Thirty seconds later, Suzy falls, and lands on her back. “...So, what you were saying about getting the lion to move—”

“Nope, too late, offer’s expired,” Isabel says. “Shoulda took your chance when you had it.”

“Aw, come on!” Suzy protests, giving Isabel puppy-dog eyes. “Please?”

Isabel pretends to think it over at length, Suzy’s expression getting more pleading all the while, until finally she breaks into a grin. “Yeah, yeah, alright, you big baby. Get up, it’s probably gonna fall.”

“What’re you gonna do?” Suzy asks, pulling herself off the ground and trotting over to stand behind Isabel.

Isabel just gives her a wordless smirk and pulls out her umbrella. She lifts it up, aiming squarely at the unsuspecting lion, both hands on the umbrella to keep it steady, and then the umbrella flares open. There’s a noise like someone quickly flipping over a sheet of paper, and a split second later the lion is upside down and scrambling to get ahold of its perch again.

Another moment later, it lands on all fours on the sidewalk and scrambles down the street.

_ “That _ was your plan?” Suzy asks, already running after it. “Now it’s even further away from us!”

“Yeah, but at least you have a chance of catching it now!” Isabel replies, folding her umbrella as she follows. “I’d say that’s a step up!”

The lion leaps over the barrier separating the sidewalk from the hill below. “That’s easy for you to say!” Suzy gasps as she vaults after it. She doesn’t land right, her feet skidding on the grass and sending her tumbling downhill at top speed.

“Oh geez,” Isabel winces, taking the fence a little more carefully and managing to stay upright in her pursuit. “Are you okay?” she calls, running after Suzy.

“I’m okay!” Suzy calls back, once she’s come to a stop at a relatively flat spot. She pulls herself back to her feet, wincing all the way at the feeling of scraped arms and knees, then pushes past the pain to keep going. “Anything you can do to get this thing to  _ stop _ moving would be appreciated, though!”

“Hadn’t thought that far ahead, sorry!” Isabel yells, then yelps as a rock comes loose under her foot and sends her tumbling down as well. This time, her fall is broken by Suzy, who happens to have stumbled into just the right spot to get knocked over.

Unfortunately, this results in both of them tumbling down the hill in a tangled ball of limbs. Fortunately, the lion happens to have paused right in their path, leading to  _ it _ joining the impromptu tumbleweed, until finally they hit another fence.

Suzy, who ended up splayed out across the lion’s side, lets out a pained groan. “Why did I think this’d be a good idea?” she moans, attempting to move one of her arms and feeling all the brand new bruises on that side of her body immediately protest.

“I dunno, you said you wanted to pet this cat,” Isabel grumbles from under the lion. “I’m just regretting getting involved in it.”

The lion, meanwhile, just lets out a small grumble and attempts to squirm upright. Suzy blinks, realizes she has her prize in her grasp, and immediately breaks out in a grin. “Hey, buddy, looks like I finally got you,” she says, her face practically split in half. The lion huffs at her

“Dear lord, Suzy, try not to look so demonic.” Isabel twists under the lion, attempting to get a grip on something and failing to find anything. “Jesus Christ, can you two get off me? I think I dropped my umbrella somewhere.”

“I would,” Suzy says, tightening her grip on the lion’s mane, “But this lion is pretty heavy and I don’t wanna let it go.”

“Then get  _ it _ to move,” Isabel mutters, managing to free her arm enough to elbow the lion in the back.

The lion ignores her, apparently fine with its current predicament, and settles to resume licking down its paws. Suzy takes a chance and untangles one of her hands from it fur to reach up, and up, high enough to rest her hand on its head, and she pats it between the ears.

It doesn’t so much as flick an ear.

Somehow, Suzy’s grin manages to widen. “Ohoho,  _ heck _ yes…!”

Isabel sighs and shakes her head. “Guess I’m gonna be stuck here for a while...”

 

* * *

 

By the time Suzy’s had her fill of pets and the lion is done licking itself clean, the sun has finished setting. Isabel entertains herself identifying constellations in the lion’s coat, which steadily cycles further into inky blackness alongside the sky until finally it rolls to its feet and trots off, leaving behind a mildly disappointed Suzy and an aching Isabel.

“It’s gotten pretty late,” Isabel says as she stands, stretching and cracking her back. “We should probably head home.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Suzy says. She hums, then with a joking grin offers her arm. “Shall I escort you back to your abode, my lady?”

Isabel huffs in amusement and crosses her arms. “You sound like you’re acting out some kinda period drama, nerd.”

“Is that a no?” Suzy asks.

“No, that’d be nice,” Isabel says, immediately lacing her arms around Suzy’s side and pointing dramatically to the road. “Onwards, my good sir!”

Suzy laughs, stumbling a little with Isabel clinging to her before they manage to get a proper rhythm going. “Now who’s the nerd?”

“It’s still totally you,” Isabel says, sticking out her tongue. A buzz in her pocket draws her attention away, and she quickly fishes out her phone to find a text from Ed.

_ where r you izzy? gramps is being grumps _

Isabel winces and quickly taps out a reply.  _ Sry got held up by a spirit. Coming home rn _

She waits a moment for a reply, getting none, and puts her phone back away. Suzy looks curious. “What was that?”

“Just Ed wondering where I am,” Isabel says. “We should probably hurry up.”

“That’d be kinda hard with you clinging to me like this,” Suzy says, tugging on her arm.

“Hey, it was your idea,” Isabel shoots back, but retracts her grip to just hold onto Suzy’s hand. After a moment, she tugs them down a different street. “C’mon, this way’s quicker.”

Suzy nods, letting Isabel pull her along down the hill. She isn’t so familiar with this area, but Isabel seems to know what she’s doing, so she trusts her to know how to get back to her own house.

Sure enough, after something like twenty minutes of idle chatter and walking, they step onto the dirt path marking Isabel’s driveway. There’s a lull in the conversation, broken only by the scuffs of their shoes on the ground, and then Isabel speaks.

“So, today was pretty fun, chasing down spirits with you,” she says, rubbing idly at the back of her neck with her free hand before giving Suzy a small grin. “Are you really sure you don’t wanna join the Activity Club? Seems we could really use you.”

Suzy huffs and give her a wry look. “Come on, I’ve already told you why not,” she says, letting her energy flare up around her shoulders to chase off the darkness a little. “The Journalism Club is my life. I’m not just gonna abandon it.”

“Well, yeah, I wouldn’t want you to,” Isabel says, twirling a strand of her hair around her finger. “I was just thinking like, I dunno, you could be a kinda reserve member. Like, we could call on you if we need you, but officially you’re still leader of the Journalism Club.”

“Isn’t that what I was already doing?” Suzy asks. “I mean, you didn’t have any trouble kidnapping me today.”

“Kidnapping my butt, Suzy,” Isabel says, shoving Suzy gently. “You  _ volunteered _ for that.”

Suzy laughs. “Are you sure? I’m pretty sure I remember you dragging me bodily from the room as I screamed for my traitorous subordinate Dimitri to rescue me.”

“I did not,” Isabel says. “You’re being dramatic, you immediately asked to go with me.”

“Hmmmmmmmm...” Suzy screws up her face in mock concentration, then shrugs and shakes her head. “Nope, don’t remember that, you definitely kidnapped me. You’re a kidnapper, Guerra.”

“Oh no, I suppose you’re right,” Isabel says. “And I was so sure I’d get to the age of thirteen without having ever gone to jail, that’s just terrible. I was on a winning streak.”

“Well, you’ll be glad to know I’ve also been a convicted felon,” Suzy says as they step into view of the dim lights of the Guerra dojo. “Why, just last week at Max’s house I was sent to jail for tax evasion.”

Isabel raises an eyebrow. “Oh were you?”

Suzy nods sagely. “Yes, we were playing monopoly, and while up until that point the banker was on my side, the moment they realized I wasn’t paying up enough money I was cruelly banished for the next few turns. They didn’t even let me post bail.”

“Hm. Sounds like you had it coming,” Isabel quips.

“Oh, come on, you’re supposed to take my side!” Suzy whines. “Didn’t you get the memo? That’s what girlfriends are for!”

“Must’ve gotten a different memo, then,” Isabel says, stepping onto the grass. “Mine said I’m supposed to be honest and call you out when you cheat at board games.”

“Pbbbthh, your version sucks,” Suzy says.

Isabel laughs, then falls silent as they reach the porch. “So, uh, guess I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Mm hmm,” Suzy hums. “You better keep an eye out for the school newspaper, too. Gonna have a great headline.”

“I’ll look forward to it,” Isabel says, grinning. With some reluctance, she lets go of Suzy’s hand, and takes a step back.

Then her hands dart out to grab Suzy’s collar and pull her in, landing a small kiss dead on Suzy’s lips, and then Isabel retreats back to the door with darkened cheeks. “Seeya!”

“...Y-yeah!” Suzy chokes out, face nearly as red as Isabel’s spectral energy. She stands there for a moment, mind blank, before turning to wander back down the driveway in a daze.

Then, in the shelter of the darkness, she dissolves into giggles.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, the only place not distracted by the fact that she just got a kiss from Isabel, she has a thought.  _ Oh dear, _ that thought says, _ I’m in way too deep. _

_ Not that that’s really a problem. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AT LONG LAST, I AM FREED FROM THE TORMENT OF HAVING TO WORK ON A LITERAL FUCKING NOVEL, (NO SERIOUSLY I'VE CHECKED MULTIPLE TIMES, THIS IS NOVEL-LENGTH,) FINALLY, I AM FREE TO WORK ON STUFF IN OTHER FANDOMS. FIND ME ON TUMBLR @brushstrokesapocalyptic, WHERE I DO OTHER STUFF? also thanks for reading etc etc love you all bye


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